$8 million awarded in North Miami Beach shooting death
Tuesday, November 25, 2008 at 9:34PM After a weeklong civil trial in Miami-Dade Circuit Court, a jury ruled Friday that the owners and managers of The Arbors apartments should pay $8 million in damages to Starsky Garcia's family for failing to provide adequate security on the property.
Attorneys Douglas McCarron and Michael Haggard of The Haggard Law Firm argued that the property owners, New York-based Maxx Properties, had no security guards or surveillance cameras at The Arbors even as crime in the area increased. The owners also failed to fix a fallen fence and broken security gates that allowed anyone on the property. From 2002 to 2006, police recorded 24 burglaries, nine assaults, three shootings and two robberies at the apartment complex.
After visiting a friend at the complex, Garcia was found dead in The Arbors parking lot at about 4:30 a.m. Dec. 9, 2006. Less than 16 hours later -- and less than half a mile away -- Broward County chiropractor Bradley Timpf was shot and killed in the parking lot of a Houston's restaurant on Biscayne Boulevard. Timpf's murder also is unsolved.
The Haggard Law Firm also represented the Timpf family in a lawsuit alleging that Houston's also had insufficient security on the night Timpf died. The Timpfs reached an out-of-court settlement in September with the parent company of Houston's, the Hillstone Restaurant Group, for an undisclosed sum.
Reader Comments (1)
I remember this shooting/murder, Starsky Garcia was found dead 20 feet away from my apartment bedroom window of unit B-105 at the Arbors Apartments at Greynolds Park. The deceased wasn't very far away from my truck in the parking lot as well. I consider myself fortunate that any stray bullet(s) didn't go thru the glass of either the sliding door or bedroom window. Wow, that was worth an $ 8 million judgement in that neighborhood ?