Miguel Zapata shares the same first name as his longtime friend Miguel Garcia, whom he knows as Mikey, and they also share years of memories.
“To me, I can say, he’s like a brother,” said Zapata. “He took off his shirt to give it to me. He’s one of the people that put me a plate to eat.”
Zapata says Mikey works hard as a painter to support his kids and wife who’s pregnant.
“She’s almost due any day,” said Zapata.
But what should be a joyful time, he says, is now a nightmare.
“That’s the worst thing that you can think of after everything that you work so hard, just so it can be taken away,” said Zapata.
NBC News reports Miguel Angel Garcia Hernandez, a Mexican national, was one of the men injured in an ICE transport van in Dallas on Wednesday morning by a sniper who opened fire on the facility.
Garcia-Hernandez had been arrested by Arlington police on August 8th and charged with DWI and two counts of evading arrest.
“He had called me a few times that day that I might regret not answering,” said Zapata.
Zapata says he’s spoken with Mikey’s family who have visited him at Parkland Hospital, and that Mikey was shot in the neck, shoulder, stomach and lower back.
“It hits really hard to think about just imagining him lying down with all those machines connected to him and not know if he’s going to wake up or not,” said Zapata.
For now, he says he’s praying his friend of more than a decade does.
“He’s a great guy. I really hope he can make it out of this one cause his kids are waiting for him at home,” said Zapata.
A second person was shot, and a third person died in the attack.
NBC News reports the two additional victims are Jose Andres Bordones-Molina of Venezuela and Norlan Guzman Fuentes, whose country of origin was not released.
DHS did not specify which man died.