The mother of a man stabbed to death in the parking lot of the Ohkay Laundromat earlier this year, is suing the owner for her son’s death, alleging they did nothing as the man who became his alleged killer harassed customers for seven hours.
Sharon Garcia, mother of Anthony Velasquez, 32, of Abiquiú, filed the wrongful death lawsuit on Nov. 20 in Rio Arriba District Court.
In the lawsuit complaint, her attorney, William Waggoner, wrote that her son’s alleged killer, Cesar Garcia, of Ranchos de Taos, cut off his ankle monitor for a case in which he is accused of stabbing a man, he also allegedly killed his girlfriend and her friend at a nearby trailer park in Taos County, then “fled south to a place where he knew there would be unlocked cars, customers carrying cash and people busy washing their clothes — the Ohkay Laundromat.”
A press release from the Taos County Sheriff’s Office said that Cesar Garcia was found driving the car of one of the double homicide victims in El Prado, but he has not been charged in that case.
Cesar Garcia is charged with first degree murder in Velasquez’s death and his case has been put on pause after his competency was raised.
Sharon Garcia is suing for wrongful death, negligence, negligent training, negligent infliction of emotional distress, punitive damages and negligent security.
The defendants in the lawsuit are the laundromat’s owners, Eric Sandoval and Sean Sandoval, and Pueblo Alliance LLC.
Pueblo Alliance LLC is owned by the Tsay Corporation, which is a “federal Contracting Group of companies (owned) and operated by Ohkay Owingeh” according to its website.
Waggoner wrote in the complaint that Cesar Garcia created an “atmosphere of fear and unease for all but him” during the seven hours he stayed on the property, trying to get into people’s cars.
The laundromat’s only employee told Cesar Garcia to leave, but he ignored her, he wrote.
“Later on, as the employee ate lunch in their car, Cesar Paz Garcia got into the back seat of the car, knife in hand, asking for money, somehow sparing their life as they ate,” Waggoner wrote. “Even still, Cesar Paz Garcia remained at the laundromat, waiting for his opportunity to gather resources and continue his murder spree.”
The single employee was never trained on what to do if people were loitering. All laundromats situated between casinos and a liquor stores “are establishments known to attract the dangerous, and as such, are ripe for these people to gather and remain — unchecked,” he wrote.
The employee called the company doing security, Pueblo Alliance LLC, but there was no response.
“The brutal multiple stabbing of Anthony occurred when he noticed Cesar Paz Garcia roaming around the parking lot, checking if cars were locked and getting in and out of them,” Waggoner wrote. “So, he told his mom that he was going to make sure their car was locked. The car which held their suitcases and valuables they had packed for what they did not know would be their last mother-son trip.”
Sharon Garcia watched from inside the laundromat, as her son was repeatedly stabbed, Waggoner wrote.
“Sharon at first was frozen, not believing what she had seen,” he wrote. “She then snapped out of it and ran to her son’s side. She held him, pleading with him not die as she watched the light leave his eyes. She screamed for help; the help that should have arrived hours earlier.”
Had the security company done its job, Velasquez might be alive, he wrote.
“Anthony Velasquez’s brutal murder was preventable but for the failure of security and their response, as well as the negligent hiring, training, and supervision by Pueblo Alliance, Ohkay Laundromat, and Eric and Dean Sandoval,” Waggoner wrote. “This Complaint seeks justice for Anthony’s needless and horrific death, for Sharon Garcia’s indescribable mental and emotional anguish and suffering.”
Waggoner did not write why the one employee, or customers, did not call tribal police.