Surveillance video recorded the whole fight between two men that ended in gunfire at the Family Express station outside the Aberdeen subdivision in Center Township Saturday night.
As a result, Dezmond Louis Garcia, 19, of Valparaiso, has been charged with a Level 3 felony of attempted aggravated battery. He also faces two Level 5 felony charges of battery with a deadly weapon and criminal recklessness, along with a misdemeanor battery charge.
The man was treated for injuries at Powers Health St. Mary’s Medical Center in Valparaiso.
Porter County Sheriff’s investigators determined that a bullet entered the rear window of the man’s Ford F-150 pickup truck, went through two headrests and ended up caught in his sweater.
An initial release about the incident from the sheriff’s department said it appeared to be isolated and that police did not believe there was an ongoing threat to public safety.
Garcia turned himself in to the Porter County Sheriff’s Office later Saturday night and admitted that he fired a shot at the man in his pickup but did it in “self-defense,” a probable cause statement says.
However, the sheriff’s detective told Garcia that at no point in the video from the Family Express was there ever a threat uttered by the victim that he was going to kill Garcia, the court record says. The victim also used his cellphone to record the confrontation.
“Dezmond just kept saying that everything happened so fast but he thought that (the victim) stated that,” said Detective Michael Steege, with the Porter County Sheriff’s Department, in the probable cause statement.
The probable cause statement outlines what the surveillance video showed:
Garcia had ridden his motorcycle to the Family Express, 3550 Ind. 2, just south of Valparaiso, at around 8:15 p.m. Garcia’s relative and his girlfriend, who are not charged in the incident, were in a silver passenger car.
That’s when a man in a Ford F-150 truck pulled into the rear lot. Garcia’s relative went to the man in the pickup truck and an argument ensued over money that each claimed the other owed.
Garcia left the Family Express, but then soon returned and a fistfight began with the man, who was arguing with Garcia’s relative.
The two separated and the man went to his truck. Garcia can be seen going to the back of the vehicle his relative was in, moving toward the rear of the vehicle and firing a shot at him, according to court records.
The relative asks if the man fired at him, and Garcia replies: “I shot him.”
Police transported Garcia to the Porter County Jail.
Jim Woods is a freelance reporter for the Post-Tribune.
