SAN ANTONIO – A police report dating back to 1994 describes how David Garza turned around and asked the man who had just shot him in the back, “Why?”
It’s the same question his family has been asking for the past 23 years, ever since Garza was shot several times at a bus stop and parking lot in the 3700 block of Broadway. Across the street, families were celebrating Easter Sunday in Brackenridge Park.
His aunt, Rosemary Flores, asked, “Why was he gunned down like this, like an animal, to be shot over and over again?”
San Antonio police said Garza and his wife were at the bus stop that is no longer in the 3700 block of Broadway when a young man approached them from behind, asking if the bus was late.
The report states that moments later, the man grabbed Garza’s face as he shot him once in the back. That’s when Garza stood up, asking his attacker why he’d shot him. It goes on to describe when Garza was shot in the chest. Still, he tried to run across the parking lot of what was a sandwich shop, only to be shot again in the left arm. Finally, the husband and father collapsed.
Garza’s wife had escaped, running into Subway as customers and employees scrambled to avoid the gunshots outside.
“I don’t want to give up on this,” Flores said. “People say, ‘You’re bringing up memories.’”
She said his family could not forget his violent death. They try to steer clear of Broadway, which remains one of the city’s busiest streets.
“This is where his spirit is, right here,” Flores said.
Police at the time said witnesses saw the suspect run away and get into a waiting Chevy pickup truck. They said the suspect had short hair, shaved on either side, with a thin mustache, and was wearing a white hat, a red flannel long-sleeved shirt, a dark undershirt and blue jeans.
Flores said the suspect, who was believed to have been in his teens at the time of the shooting, is probably a father or a grandfather by now.
She said if so, she wants him to think about how Garza’s mother and now-grown daughter feel without their son and father.
“Maybe he’s found the Lord,” she said. “Come forward. Tell us, "This is what happened.'”
She said after more than two decades, “I don’t want David to think we’ve given up.”
Flores said as she looked upward, “I know he’s seeing us from heaven and I know that he knows we’re trying.”
She urges anyone with information about the shooting to contact San Antonio police.
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