Yeah, it's happening all over:
http://ksla.com/Global/story.asp?S=4839953
Police Investigate Stabbing
Late Sunday night, Texarkana, Texas police were investigating a stabbing outside a restaurant.
Police say the male victim was stabbed numerous times by the suspect in the parking lot of the Olive Garden on Mall Drive.
Afterwards, police say the suspect went inside the restaurant.
That suspect is now in custody.
The condition of his victim was unknown late Sunday night.
http://www.newschannel6.tv/news/default ... s&id=10863
Man Stabbed at Olive Garden
Monday, May 01, 2006
A dispute outside a Texarkana restaurant Sunday night has left one man fighting for his life and another behind bars.
Police say 23 year old Datran Jones stabbed a man several times outside the Olive Garden Sunday night.
Investigators still aren`t sure on a motive.
The victim was taken to a local hospital and is listed in stable condition.
Jones is now facing aggravated assault charges.
###
Mind you, this happened in
the upscale part of Texarkana, where all the new restaurants and businesses are opening. Of course, it's also next door to Outback Steak House, where
this happened:
Outback slayings shock city
Tuesday, September 2, 2003 8:59 AM CDT
Three employees found shot to death early Monday
By JODI SHERIDAN
Texarkana Gazette and
By GREG BISCHOF
Texarkana Gazette
Texarkana, Texas, police are investigating the shooting deaths of three employees at the Outback Steakhouse in the 3200 block of Mall Drive.
Matt Hines, 31, Crissy Willis, 23 and Rebecca Shifflet, 24, who was pregnant, were found dead of gunshot wounds at the popular eatery about 3:40 a.m. Monday, said Texarkana, Texas, Police Chief Danny Alexander.
All three employees lived in Texarkana.
Alexander said the bodies were found in a small office and were sent off for autopsies.
An autopsy will determine how far along Shifflet was in her pregnancy, he said.
Outback server and bartender Mary Gerrard said Shifflet was almost six months pregnant.
"She just told her mom she was going to name the baby ... " said Gerrard.
"My nerves are just shot right now," Gerrard said on Monday after learning of the triple slayings.
"My nerves are just shot right now," Gerrard said on Monday after learning of the triple slayings.
Alexander also said he was unsure if a new Texas state law that protects unborn fetuses would make the incident a quadruple homicide.
"We just have to look at the whole thing and see," said Alexander.
He said the three cases are being treated as homicides, but a motive for the slayings has not yet been established.
Currently, police haven't determined if the three homicides were related to a robbery attempt, he added.
He said there was no signs of a forced entry into the restaurant.
"They are doing an inventory to see if any money is missing," said Alexander.
Police units responded to the scene after they received a dispatch to a health and welfare call about 3:04 a.m., said Alexander.
Police were dispatched to the welfare concern after the spouse of one of the employees notified Bi-State Justice Building dispatchers that she called the restaurant because her husband, who was an employee there, failed to come home.
Having received no answer when she called the restaurant, the woman alerted police.
When police arrived, they found three cars parked outside the restaurant and the business' doors locked.
After gaining access to the building from a restaurant representative, officers discovered the three employees.
Gerrard said Hines was the proprietor, Willis was a "key employee" or shift manager and Shifflet was the general manager.
However, other media reports listed Hines as the manager.
"I've been told all day long that he (Hines) was the manager," said Texas-side police spokesman Danny Presley.
Gerrard said she thinks all of the money the restaurant earned over the weekend was at the location.
"If they wanted money, why kill everyone?" asked Gerrard. "I just don't understand this. It makes no sense at all. It's like a TV show."
She said the three employees were at the business late doing end-of-the-month inventory.
"I'm sure that's what they were all doing," said Gerrard.
Gerrard said Willis was actually there just helping out.
The head bartender, she said, is usually the one who helps out with inventory.
Kevin Tan, who is the head bartender, said he was on vacation and that is why he was not at the restaurant during those fateful hours.
"I don't want to go back not knowing what happened that night," said Tan. "It will always be in the back of my head."
Tan said he wasn't taking it as hard as others were, but he was still visibly shaken by the incident.
"I'm just shocked and confused," said Tan.
Other employees were also shaken by the death of people they not only called their bosses, but their friends.
"It's really really hard to believe right now," said Blake Blann, who has been working at the restaurant for about three months. "I just helped Crissy move out of her apartment."
Gerrard said the restaurant closes at 9 p.m. on Sundays, but on this particular Sunday they were uncharacteristically busy at closing time.
But she said employees don't usually leave that late on Sundays.
"You never know in the restaurant business when you are going to get out," said Gerrard.
She also said there are people who clean the floors every day, but they don't come until earlier in the morning and she wasn't sure if they were coming in at all on Labor Day morning.
Gerrard said she isn't completely dealing with what happened just yet, and she also can't help but think of her job and the jobs of the other employees.
But that wasn't the most important thing on her mind.
"A lot of people were more impacted than I was," said Gerrard. "I just keep thinking of the other people, their families."
Crime scene investigators were still hard at work in the afternoon, carrying out brown paper bags with possible evidence, with family members and employees gathering to console one another.
Alexander said a triple homicide hasn't occurred in the city within the last three years as far as he knows
"This is no way to start off a holiday," Alexander said. "Our hearts go out to the families of the victims, and we will do everything we can to find out who did this."
Police are asking anyone who was at the Outback Steakhouse on the night of the crime and noticed anything at all unusual, to call police immediately at (903) 798-3181, or call 911.
(Two men were arrested and convicted. Both are serving life sentences.)