A lawyer for the family of a 9-year-old girl fatally shot outside a Chase Bank in Houston said Wednesday that the company should be held accountable after it failed to improve customer safety after earlier crimes at the site, including the October killing of a woman using the ATM.
Lawyer Rick Ramos said there were a “million things” the bank could have done to help prevent the Feb. 14 death of Arlene Alvarez, but it had done little to put additional security measures in place such as hiring off-duty police officers, enclosing the machine or turning it off at night.
“The security measures that Chase Bank should have instituted long ago to prevent the unreasonable risk of persons being murdered by violent crimes committed on their premises is very low in cost compared to the ultimate loss of two lives within five months,” Ramos added in a release.
In a statement to NBC News, a Chase spokesman said the company was “saddened by this tragic incident and offer our sincere condolences to the Alvarez family. We are working closely with local officials who are handling the investigation.”
Arlene, who was in fourth grade and described by Ramos as an "old soul" who took care of her siblings, was killed Monday after an armed robbery at the Chase branch ATM in southeast Houston, police said.
The victim in the robbery, Tony Earls, 41, fired at a pickup that he believed the assailant had gotten into, according to police.
The vehicle wasn’t involved in the robbery; inside was a family of five, including Arlene.
Ramos said the girl's father, Armando Alvarez, was driving down the road when gunfire erupted.
Speaking to reporters Wednesday, Armando Alvarez said that he saw the man later identified as Earls just feet from his truck, continuing to "spray" the vehicle. He shouted for his children to duck, but Arlene had her headphones on, he said.
"I didn't scream loud enough," her mother, Gwen Alvarez, added tearfully.
Earls was charged with aggravated assault with a deadly weapon and being held in lieu of $100,000 bond, court records show. His lawyer declined to comment Wednesday.
Mary Jane Gonzalez, 49, was killed at the site Oct. 17. She had been using the ATM and was killed "over $40," according to the release from Ramos, who is also representing her husband, Hector Gonzalez.
The suspect fled, and the case remains unsolved.
Gonzalez was pronounced dead at the scene, NBC affiliate KPRC reported.
"She did not deserve to die the way she did in the cowardly way that they killed her,” her husband, Hector, told reporters after she was killed.
"She was a good person," he added. "She was my soul mate."
According to a community crime map, other crimes committed at the bank address over the last two years include aggravated assault, robbery, vehicle theft and burglary.