On Black Friday, a gunman opened fire in San Jose’s Westfield Valley Fair mall at about 5:40 p.m. Three victims were located and taken to a nearby hospital with injuries that were not considered life-threatening.
A suspect has been taken into custody, but the trauma and chaos of the shooting had ripple effects on the community.
Amid the event, shoppers at the mall fled the scene and ran into a neighboring subdivision, where Martin Garcia saw two teenage girls in his Ring doorbell camera, seeking safety.
“Just for a second I thought maybe it was a prank,” Martin Garcia told CBS Bay Area. “Or, maybe I was being pranked because they all ran to the back of the house. And I looked and there were more people. And I realized there's something bad going on. I got to let them in the house.”
After Martin Garcia welcomed the two girls in, a mass of people came running behind them, also asking for shelter.
Ring camera footage shows Martin Garcia calling to them: “Come inside! Come inside my house.”
Martin and his wife, Irene Garcia, said they estimated about 50 people ended up staying in their home until it was safe.
“People just kept coming in,” Irene Garcia told Inside Edition. “They were just so scared. It was almost like a movie.”
One such person was Orieyonna Johnson, a shopper who was visiting from San Francisco.
“We landed in the street of our wonderful new friends, the angels, the Garcia family,” Johnson told CBS Bay Area. “And that was a breathtaking moment — the love and the comfort that we felt when Mr. Garcia opened his arms like an angel.”
Johnson added to Inside Edition that the people running for safety weren’t sure if the gunman was behind them and that they were just trying to go in the direction where there were the least amount of people.
“We were in live, active fear,” she said. “... and somehow we ended up right in the trajectory of the wonderful Garcias.”
Irene Garcia was out running errands when Martin was met with the stream of guests. He called his wife and told her to expect a full house when she got home.
“That evening, all these ambulances were passing and sirens. And I looked at my boys and I said, ‘I bet you something happened at the mall,’” Irene told San Jose Inside. “I’ve always been in denial that this can happen in our neighborhood, but obviously with what you see on the news, it can happen.”
In addition to offering a safe place for people to catch their breath and escape immediate danger, the family ordered pizza for their surprise guests, put K-pop tunes on their TV, and took selfies with people who were now their new friends.
Since many of the visitors had left the mall on foot and couldn’t return to their cars, the Garcia home also became a pick-up location for loved ones to come retrieve the shoppers.
“They asked permission to basically leave and meet [relatives] in the street,” Martin told San Jose Inside. “We kind of felt more like parents — looking out and making sure that there’s somebody out there. People asked us to walk them to the door.”
After a life-changing evening, the family said they are actively planning a reunion and have exchanged contact information with many of the people who came to their home.
“I don't know if there was any other choice when you have two young girls coming to your door in fear,” Irene told Inside Edition.
“You just have to help. We just did what we thought was the right thing to do: Open the door.”
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Header image courtesy of Westfield Valley Fair
