Santa Barbara County – The pastoral settings of the rolling hills in northern Santa Barbara County, through which tourists and locals alike travel on wine tours and scenic excursions throughout the year, are rarely the scene of criminal activity.
The morning of Thursday, September 10th however, that all changed. It was in the fertile agricultural fields just off the pavement of Betteravia Road and Foxen Canyon Road—in the northern portion of Santa Barbara County’s renowned wine country with tour buses passing by almost hourly—that two men working to harvest an expanse of broccoli apparently got into a conversation that led to violence.
According to Santa Barbara County Sheriff’s Department Public Information Officer Kelly Hoover, it was at approximately 9:00 a.m. when two men “were cutting broccoli in a field” and engaged in a physical confrontation that left one of them suffering from multiple stab wounds.
A 911 Emergency call alerted Santa Barbara County Sheriff’s deputies to the crime, and while law enforcement and an emergency medical response team were en route to the scene, witnesses to the stabbing detained Santa Maria resident Margarito Cervantes-Lopez, 26. Upon arrival at the broccoli field, deputies received witness statements indicating that while using his “field knife” to cut and trim broccoli, Cervantes-Lopez turned on a 34-year-old co-worker and used the same instrument to stab him “several times.”
The stabbing victim was transported to a nearby hospital where he is expected to survive his injuries, while Cervantes-Lopez was taken into custody and transported to Santa Barbara County Jail where he was booked on a charge of attempted murder.
Photo: Courtesy Santa Barbara County Jail Booking
