Care Facility Kitchen Worker Stabs Co-Worker
Santa Barbara – Santa Barbara’s Hillside House, an intermediate care facility for the developmentally disabled, is known as a community of professionals widely supported by a number of local foundations and corporations where 24-hour care is provided to those with a wide range of physical, cognitive, and learning needs.
Evodio Garcia
But even in such a giving, charitable environment, tensions apparently can spiral out of control, as evidenced by a conflict that erupted into bloody violence between staff employees as the lunch hour approached on April 4th. It was at that time that a 911 Emergency call was made and summarily terminated by a hangup, which caused the immediate dispatch of Santa Barbara County Sheriff’s Deputies from the Goleta Valley Patrol Bureau to the 23-acre facility, where, according to SBSD Public Information Officer Kelly Hoover, “investigation revealed that two co-workers, both long time employees” had been having considerable personal conflict that erupted into a challenge to “go outside and fight”.
While, apparently, on his way to do that, longtime Hillside House employee Evodio Garcia, 62, picked up a kitchen knife while walking through the kitchen and attacked his 62 year-old co-worker, stabbing him twice. The staff supervisor was alerted to the confrontation in the kitchen and physically restrained Garcia, ultimately convincing him to release the knife. Garcia placed the knife on a kitchen counter and was escorted out of the area while other employees summoned emergency medical responders.
Hillside House
SBSD Deputies arrived with City and County Paramedics who quickly transported the victim to Santa Barbara Cottage Hospital for treatment. Deputies arrested Garcia at the scene and booked him into Santa Barbara County Jail on charges of Attempted Murder, with bail set at $500,000.
Photo: Courtesy Santa Barbara County Jail Booking, Hillside House
Read more:
KCOY: Hillside House Employee Arrested After Allegedly Stabbing Co-Worker
