A violent attack at an apartment complex in East Bakersfield forced one local family to relocate to a less dangerous area.
Wrangling a group of energetic youngsters in the morning is the narrative of many houses during the school year, and the Macias family was no exception.
Daniel Macias, Marisol Luna’s husband, has just returned from dropping their children off at school.
“He came upstairs with my smallest daughter and she had forgot her teddy bear in the car, and he was like you want it, let’s go,” Luna said.
When he arrived at the parking lot, he saw their neighbor, Douglas Laughlin, and his son-in-law arguing with a man who they claimed resided in the complex.
“I had a feeling something wasn’t right that day,” Laughlin said.
According to Laughlin, the guy threatened to assault his son-in-law, who had recently undergone surgery, so Macias stepped in to assist.
“I told him he wasn’t going to disrespect my neighbors,” Macias explained. “He wasn’t going to disrespect his elders in front of me and that he needed to leave.”
Macias took a step back and let the man go.
“He jumped up. He run upstairs, and he kept hollering ‘I got something for you.’ I thought he was going after a gun, I’ll be honest with you,” Laughlin said. “When he come downstairs, I mean he had blood in his eyes.”
That’s when the man pulled out the knife.
“I tried to just get away to get to safety and unfortunately I fell, and that’s when I was stabbed in the back of my arm,” Macias remembered.
Luna claims she contacted the sheriff’s office during the altercation, but when she saw her husband on the ground, she jumped, claiming she was concerned he was injured.
“I threw my hands in not seeing where or what, and I guess I touched the blade,” she recalled.
Laughlin drew Luna back after seeing her hands slashed by the blade as other neighbors sought to seize the knife from the man.
“I got her back and was trying to keep her out of it because she’s about to have a baby in a week or two,” Laughlin said.
Luna, who was nine months pregnant at the time, had surgery at the hospital later that morning.
“I was worried after, like the baby. Can we check on the baby? Is she okay?” she said.
Doctors assured her that her kid was fine, but the reality of the consequences came in for the mother.
“I was looking at my hands and thinking about my kids and doing their hair and just doing a lot of things,” she told me.
According to a Kern County Sheriff’s Office community crime map, the KCSO responded to 18 aggravated assault charges in the last month.
Twelve of those occurrences occurred in East Bakersfield.
I contacted Leticia Perez, the Kern County District 5 supervisor, for her reaction to the violent incidents in her region, but she had not responded as of press time.
“I knew it was stealing my wife’s peace of mind, so I did something to make her feel better, safer.” “I decided to relocate my family,” Macias stated after his wife voiced fear about the safety of their children.
The family relocated to the southwest in October.
Macias lost his job as a result of the incident, resulting in a financial strain that will linger into the holiday season, but despite the setbacks, the family chooses to remain optimistic.
Luna gave birth to a healthy baby girl a week after the tragedy.
“I woke up in a hospital bed. He probably woke up in jail, but I just hope he changes his life for the better,” she said.
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