Garcia’s Restaurant Clarifies What Really (Didn’t) Happen There

When I saw on the news that there had been a shooting at Garcia's (5604 Slide) on Wednesday night, I was genuinely shocked. It's such a nice place (with great food too).

Probably the correct reaction, seeing as both "shooting" AND "at Garcia's" were completely inaccurate information. 

When the dust settled, it was revealed what happened was that someone was stabbed in the shopping center parking lot. It had nothing to do with Garcia's, whatsoever. Yet they noticed a considerable dip in sales over the incident.

So what went wrong here?

The news station that reported the incident was based on inaccurate information, but it wasn't their fault the information was incorrect. It seems that the event was chaotic (understandable) and that people involved got their wires crossed.

The initial call was for shots fired. We also received photos of shots fired into the bar, and heard witness accounts of a shooting. [...]Our news crew was initially told by police the shooting was at Garcia’s.

Unfortunately, once something is on the internet, it's very difficult to "scrub" it off- you can still google "Garcia's shooting" and find the news article, which has been amended to reflect the truth.

I can tell you from personal experience that it can take a headline several hours to update on a search engine, too. Trust me- it's stressful and embarrassing to be in that situation as a writer.

Garcia's responded to the inaccurate article in a Facebook post. They were understandably upset:

What Can Be Done?

Well, the first thing we all can do is understand that a developing story is just that- an initial report that could have some inaccuracies.

And even if something like this does happen inside a business, remember that sometimes people do awful things in completely random settings. One incident is not good evidence that a place is unsafe.

Another thing we can do is support Garcia's at this time. I've had the pleasure of eating there a few times, it's wonderful! I'm sure their staff would appreciate a few busy days to make up for their losses.