Jordan Garcia has been booked into the Clark County Department of Corrections on an open murder charge after a birthday celebration at The Dive Bar on Maryland Parkway ended with Anthony Anderson dead and police piecing together a late-night fight that turned fatal.
The case is drawing attention in Las Vegas news because detectives later filled in the sequence behind the shooting: Anderson, his girlfriend and Garcia had met up at the bar on May 31 for Anderson’s birthday, and by around 4 a.m. on June 1 the three were trying to leave when Anderson insisted on driving even though his girlfriend had agreed to be the designated driver. An argument followed. Garcia and Anderson had been drinking, but police said Anderson’s girlfriend told them Garcia had only had a few drinks while Anderson had been drinking heavily.
That report matters because it shows how quickly the night shifted from celebration to violence. Garcia had been picked up from work by Anderson and his girlfriend, who were also his roommates, and the girlfriend told officers the two men showed affection for each other and called each other brothers. Yet once the dispute over who would drive erupted, she said she heard a physical altercation outside while she was in the driver’s seat, then found the men on the ground together after separating them. She later told police she saw flashes in her mirror, which she assumed were from a gun.
Police said seven rounds were fired, based on casings left at the scene. An employee at the bar heard the shots and rushed over to try to help Anderson. That employee reported Garcia saying something close to, “I shot him and he tried to fight me.” Investigators also learned the gun had been bought by Anderson and shared between him and Garcia, and that Anderson had it with him that night because Garcia was at work. Anderson’s girlfriend told officers it was not unusual for Anderson to carry the weapon.
Garcia was later taken to LVMPD headquarters for an interview, where he invoked his right to remain silent and asked for a lawyer. The open question is not whether the shooting happened — police say it did, and they have now booked a suspect — but what exactly unfolded in the scuffle outside the bar in the moments before the shots were fired.
