Good Samaritan offered help to a girl arguing with her violent partner in public, her boyfriend shot him six times to death, charged

Every couple has misunderstandings and goes through arguments every now and then, and this is completely normal for all couples. What is not normal is when these arguments turn violent that usually end up with injuries, sometimes even fatal.

Unfortunately, the number of such cases in United States has been on the rise in the last couple of years especially with the pandemic in place when people were forced to spend more time at home than usual leading to rising trend of domestic violence during that period.

One such incident led to the arrest of the 22-year-old J. Garcia last week in Illinois who is accused for shooting to death a total random person month and a half ago when Garcia had a fight with his girlfriend in public and the victim asked Garcia’s girlfriend if she needed help.

According to the incident report, the victim, later identified as the 25-year-old M. Bankston, had just parked his car when he saw the 22-year-old Garcia arguing with his girlfriend on the morning of Sept. 17. Bankston saw Garcia violently grabbing the woman by her shoulders and neck and he approached them asking the girl if she needed help.

That’s when Garcia allegedly turned his ire toward Bankston, pulling out his handgun and shooting him. When Bankston fell to the ground and began to crawl away, Garcia then shot Bankston six more times, the police report indicates.

The victim was transferred to the nearest hospital for treatment where he was later pronounced dead.

The shooting incident was caught on a surveillance camera, but the quality of the footage was bad and those involved couldn’t be identified by the footage itself. However, investigators were able to obtain another footage with way better quality clearly showing Garcia’s face and his tattoos.

From what was seen on that footage, Bankston was “simply standing” by the couple after he approached them, he was unarmed and didn’t threaten Garcia in any way. Garcia was also identified by multiple other witnesses who witnessed the shooting incident.

As Fox 10 Phoenix reported, Garcia ran back to his home where he “took off his shirt, let his hair down” before returning to the crime scene for a time, where one of the witnesses recognized him. The investigation showed that Garcia had been diagnosed with mental illness, but no additional details about his condition were given at this point.

Garcia allegedly said he disassembled and threw the gun he used “in the lagoon.” He also told police he thought he “had a dream about what happened” and couldn’t recall everything from that night. When he was arrested that day, he initially decided to remain silent, but he later admitted to killing the victim fearing that he “was going to do something to him.”

He was arrested and charged with murder last Tuesday and held in jail without bail. The judge said Bankston appeared to have been acting as a “good Samaritan” who was trying help.