Fatal Odessa Apartment Shooting: When Property Owners Answer for Negligent Security
Court documents have surfaced in a fatal shooting that took place on a Tuesday night at an apartment complex in Odessa, Texas. Someone’s life ended in a place where they had every right to feel safe — their own home, or the home of someone they trusted. If you are reading this because that someone was your spouse, your child, your parent, or your friend, we want you to hear us say something that most pages won’t tell you this plainly: what happened to your family may not have been a random, unpreventable act. Under Texas law, when a property owner knows that violent crime keeps happening on its premises and does nothing meaningful to stop it, the law can hold that owner accountable — not to replace the life that was taken, but to force changes that could prevent the next family from sitting where you are sitting right now.
We are Attorney911 — The Manginello Law Firm, PLLC. We handle wrongful death and premises liability cases across Texas, and we have spent more than 27 years in courtrooms fighting for families who lost someone because a company chose not to spend the money to keep people safe. Ralph Manginello, our managing partner, has been a licensed Texas trial attorney since 1998. Lupe Peña, our associate, spent years inside a national insurance-defense firm — the rooms where adjusters and their lawyers decide how to deny, delay, and devalue claims exactly like yours — and now uses that insider knowledge for injured people and grieving families. We are writing this page to give you everything we know about how these cases work in Ector County, what the law actually requires, what the evidence clock is doing right now, and what your options are — whether or not you ever call us.
What the Court Documents Reveal — and Why That Matters Now
The fact that court documents have been filed in connection with this shooting means the matter has progressed beyond the initial police investigation. Criminal proceedings are likely underway, which means a prosecutor is building a case against the person who pulled the trigger. That is a separate process from what we are talking about here. The criminal system addresses the individual who committed the act. The civil system — the system we work in — asks a different question: could the property owner have prevented this, and did the law already require it to try?
Those two cases run on separate clocks. The criminal prosecution does not pause your civil deadline. The civil statute of limitations in Texas for both wrongful death and survival actions runs independently — two years from the date of death. We will get to the exact deadline and its narrow exceptions below, but the most important thing to understand right now is that the civil case can proceed in parallel with the criminal prosecution, and the evidence that decides the civil case is disappearing on a timeline that has nothing to do with either court’s schedule.
Odessa sits in Ector County, along the I-20 corridor in the Permian Basin, about 20 miles southwest of Midland. The city has lived through decades of oil-boom and oil-bust population swings, and those swings have a direct effect on apartment security. Boom cycles bring rapid population growth, high tenant turnover, transient populations, and housing infrastructure under strain. Apartment complexes in this environment face predictable security challenges — challenges that experienced property owners and management companies know about, plan for, and are legally expected to address. When they do not, and someone dies as a result, the civil law provides a path to accountability.
Ector County civil cases are heard in the 161st, 244th, 358th, and 446th Judicial District Courts. The jury pools are drawn from a predominantly working-class, oil-industry-connected population. Those jurors tend toward conservative verdicts — but we have seen, case after case, that conservative jurors respond powerfully to clear evidence that a company knew about a danger, could have fixed it, chose not to, and someone died because of that choice. The venue is not hostile to negligent security cases. It is hostile to weak negligent security cases. The difference is entirely in the evidence — which is why the evidence preservation clock, which we describe in detail below, is the single most urgent thing on this page.
Texas Negligent Security Law: The Foreseeability Framework
Texas premises liability law classifies people who enter property as invitees, licensees, or trespassers, with the highest legal duty owed to invitees. Apartment residents and their social guests are invitees. The landowner owes them a duty to use reasonable care to keep the premises safe and to protect them from foreseeable third-party criminal acts.
The critical question in every Texas negligent security case is foreseeability. Texas courts apply the framework established in Timberwalk Apartments, Inc. v. Cain, which examines four factors to determine whether a criminal act was foreseeable:
The foreseeability analysis considers the proximity, recency, frequency, and similarity of prior criminal incidents at or near the property. A landowner is not liable for third-party criminal acts unless the plaintiff can show that the harm was foreseeable based on these factors.
That sentence is the entire battleground of your case. Every piece of evidence we discuss on this page — the police calls-for-service records, the internal incident reports, the tenant complaints about broken gates and bad lighting, the security patrol logs — all of it exists to answer one question: did the property owner have enough notice, from enough prior similar events, that this shooting was foreseeable?
Here is how each factor works in practice:
Proximity asks how close the prior crimes were to the property. Calls to the Odessa Police Department for service at the complex address itself are the most powerful, but crime at neighboring properties within a short radius can also contribute — especially if the complex is in a high-crime area the owner knew about.
Recency asks how recently the prior incidents occurred. A shooting that happened two months before this one is more probative than one that happened five years ago. But a pattern stretching over years — even if no single incident is recent — can establish a sustained, known danger that the owner ignored.
Frequency asks how often prior crimes happened. Five calls for service in a year is different from fifty. We pull the Odessa PD calls-for-service records for a minimum three-to-five-year period to establish the volume. The police department maintains this data, and it is generally retained long-term — but the complex’s own internal incident reports and tenant complaints are a different story. Those records are held by the property management company, and they can be purged on the company’s own retention schedule. That is why we demand them immediately.
Similarity asks how close the prior crimes were to the one that killed your family member. Prior shootings are the strongest. Prior assaults, armed robberies, and drug-related violence are also highly probative. Prior property crimes — theft, vandalism — are weaker but still relevant, especially when they show a pattern of criminal activity that the owner allowed to continue without upgrading security.
The Odessa Police Department may participate in a Crime Free Multi-Housing program — a voluntary initiative that trains apartment managers on crime prevention, security standards, and tenant screening. If this complex participated, the program establishes a voluntary standard of care the complex either met or failed to meet. If the complex did not participate, that fact itself can be evidence that the owner was not taking reasonable steps to address crime on its property.
Texas does not impose a single statewide security standard for apartment complexes, but local ordinances in some West Texas municipalities address minimum lighting, fencing, and access-control requirements. The Texas Property Code governs landlord-tenant duties including the duty to make repairs, and some courts have extended those duties to encompass security deficiencies when crime is a foreseeable consequence of the landlord’s failure to maintain the premises.
Who Can Be Held Liable: The Defendant Stack
A negligent security case is rarely about one defendant. The apartment complex where this shooting happened is likely a deliberate stack of separate companies, each designed to limit the others’ liability. Understanding that stack is the first step in making sure the right entity — and the right insurance policy — is on the hook.
The apartment complex owner or LLC is the entity of record for the property. This is the company that holds title to the land, controls the overall security plan, and is responsible for maintaining safe premises for residents and their guests. It is the primary defendant in a negligent security case.
The property management company — if separate from the owner — has operational control over day-to-day security, maintenance, tenant complaints, and incident reporting. If the owner delegated security decisions to the management company, the management company may carry its own independent duty. This is common: the owner is a real estate holding entity with minimal staff, and the management company is the one that actually received the tenant complaints about broken gates, inadequate lighting, or dangerous activity on the property.
The third-party security company — if the complex contracted one — has a contractual duty to provide patrol, monitoring, or access-control services. If the patrols were understaffed, not performed as contracted, or if the security company failed to respond to incidents it was hired to prevent, it can be liable for its own negligence.
The parent company or real estate investment trust — if the complex is part of a larger portfolio — may be reachable if evidence shows that systemic security policies or budget decisions originated at the corporate level. Many apartment complexes are owned by LLCs that hold almost no assets, with the real money sitting one or two entities up the chain. We trace the ownership structure to find the entity with the actual resources.
The shooter — the third-party criminal actor — committed the intentional torts of assault and battery. In most cases, the shooter is judgment-proof: they have no insurance, no assets, and no ability to pay a meaningful verdict. But their conduct is the predicate criminal act that triggers the landowner’s duty of foreseeability. The shooter’s criminal prosecution is separate from the civil case, and the civil case does not depend on a criminal conviction to succeed.
The reason this stack matters so much is insurance coverage. Many apartment complexes carry only $1 million to $2 million in primary liability coverage, with umbrella policies that may or may not respond to a negligent security claim. Some policies contain assault-and-battery exclusions that attempt to deny coverage for crimes committed on the property — a coverage fight that can determine whether a verdict is collectible. Confirming the available insurance coverage is one of the first things we do when we open a case like this, because the coverage structure shapes the entire strategy.
Damages in a Fatal Apartment Shooting Case
Texas law provides two separate causes of action after a fatal injury, and a complete case uses both.
Wrongful death — governed by Chapter 71 of the Texas Civil Practice and Remedies Code — belongs to the surviving family members. A surviving spouse, children, or parents of the person who died may recover for the loss of the decedent’s earning capacity, care, maintenance, support, advice, counsel, and companionship, plus mental anguish and loss of inheritance. This is the claim that compensates the family for what they lost — the income that will no longer come into the household, the guidance a parent will never give, the companionship that was taken, and the anguish of living without someone who should still be here.
Survival action — which passes to the decedent’s estate — allows recovery for the decedent’s conscious pain and suffering between the moment of injury and death, medical expenses incurred during that interval, and funeral and burial expenses. If the shooting was instantaneous, survival damages for pain and suffering will be limited. But any documented period of consciousness — any evidence that your loved one was aware, suffering, or afraid between the gunshot and death — substantially increases that component of the case.
Punitive damages are available under Texas law upon a showing of gross negligence — specifically, the defendant’s actual awareness of an extreme risk and conscious indifference to that risk. In a negligent security context, this requires evidence that the complex knew of repeated prior violent crime on the property and did nothing or took only cosmetic measures. Exemplary damages in Texas are governed by Chapter 41 of the Texas Civil Practice and Remedies Code, which imposes a statutory cap formula on punitive awards. The exact formula should be confirmed against the current statute, but the principle is clear: when a property owner’s indifference to a known danger rises to the level of gross negligence, Texas juries can punish that indifference with damages beyond compensation.
Texas imposes no general cap on non-economic damages in premises liability or wrongful death cases outside of medical malpractice. This is one of the most important advantages Texas wrongful death law gives families: there is no statutory ceiling on what a jury can award for mental anguish, loss of companionship, and the human cost of a preventable death. The real limit is the evidence and the insurance — not an arbitrary cap.
To build the economic component of the damages, a board-certified forensic economist projects lost earning capacity based on the decedent’s age, occupation, earnings history, and life expectancy. A life-care planner is generally unnecessary in a fatal case but may document the family’s ongoing support needs. The economic damages stream — past and future lost wages, lost employer-paid benefits, lost household services, funeral costs, and pre-death medical expenses — is stacked on top of the non-economic losses, and the total is what a jury is asked to consider.
Evidence That Disappears: Why the Clock Is the Enemy
Every negligent security case is, at its core, a documentary case. The outcome is decided by records — records that prove the property owner knew about prior crime and failed to act. Those records are disappearing right now, on schedules set by the companies that hold them, and unless someone with legal authority demands that they be preserved, they will be gone before anyone asks for them.
Surveillance footage from the apartment complex — the CCTV cameras that may have captured the shooter’s access point, the condition of the lighting, the status of the gates, and the presence or absence of security patrols — is typically overwritten on a rolling 7-to-30-day cycle. If this shooting happened more than a few weeks ago and no one has sent a preservation letter, the footage may already be gone. This is the single fastest-dying piece of evidence in the entire case. A spoliation preservation letter — a formal written demand that the complex owner, management company, and any security contractor freeze all footage, logs, and incident reports — is the first thing that goes out when we are retained on a case like this.
Odessa Police Department calls-for-service records for the complex address — the record of every 911 call, every officer dispatched, every incident report generated at that property over a three-to-five-year period — are the backbone of the foreseeability case under Timberwalk. Police records are generally retained long-term, which is good news. But you do not get these by waiting. They must be requested through public records channels, and the scope of the request matters: too narrow, and you miss the pattern; too broad, and the department delays. We know how to frame these requests for exactly the data that establishes foreseeability — proximity, recency, frequency, and similarity.
Apartment complex internal incident reports and tenant security complaints — the records that prove actual notice of prior criminal activity — are held by the property management company, not the police. These are the records that show management was told about dangerous conditions: the broken gate that let anyone walk in, the burned-out lights in the parking lot where the shooting happened, the prior incidents of violence that tenants reported and management ignored. Property management companies routinely purge these records according to their own document retention policies, and personnel turnover accelerates the loss. A manager who received complaints and did nothing moves on to another property, and the complaints disappear with them. These records must be demanded immediately.
Security contracts, patrol logs, and access-control system data establish what security measures were actually in place versus what the complex represented to tenants. If the lease agreement or marketing materials promised gated access, security patrols, or camera monitoring, and those measures were not actually maintained — the gate was broken, the patrol was understaffed, the cameras were not recording — that gap between promise and reality is powerful evidence of negligence. Third-party security companies may destroy logs after short retention periods, and access-control or gate-entry logs may be overwritten automatically.
Lease agreements and addenda that reference security provisions determine whether the complex made specific security representations to tenants that created a duty beyond the general premises liability standard. They also confirm the victim’s legal status as a tenant or invitee, which determines the level of duty the landowner owed.
Lighting audits and maintenance records for the incident area matter because inadequate lighting is a frequent proximate cause element in negligent security cases. If the shooting happened in a dark parking lot, a dark stairwell, or a poorly lit walkway, and the maintenance records show that burned-out lights or broken fixtures were reported and left unrepaired, that record ties the physical condition to the foreseeability of the harm.
Personnel records for property management and security staff on duty identify who was responsible for security decisions, their training, their qualifications, and whether staffing levels were adequate on the night of the shooting. Employee turnover in property management is significant. Former employees relocate and become unavailable for depositions. Identifying and securing their testimony early is essential.
When a defendant lets required evidence die after receiving a preservation notice, the law answers. A judge can give the jury an adverse-inference instruction — telling them they may assume the lost record was as damaging as the plaintiff says it was. The bar for the harshest sanctions is high, but the leverage begins the moment the preservation letter is on file. The letter itself — not the lawsuit — is what stops the clock.
The Insurance Adjuster Playbook: What They Do and How We Answer
Within days of a fatal shooting at an apartment complex, the property owner’s insurance company will have opened a file. A claims adjuster — possibly the same adjuster who handles slip-and-falls at the same complex — will be assigned. If the complex is part of a larger portfolio, a national carrier’s claims department may be involved. Here is what they will do, in order, and here is how each play is answered.
Play 1: The friendly “just checking in” call. Within the first week or two, someone will call the family. The voice will be warm, sympathetic, professional. They will say they are “just calling to check on the family” or “to see if there is anything we can do.” They will ask the family to “just tell us what happened” — on a recording that is built to be quoted against you later. The purpose of this call is to get the family talking before they have a lawyer, to lock in a narrative that minimizes the complex’s responsibility, and to plant the idea that a quick check can make this go away.
The counter: Do not speak with the apartment complex’s insurance company. Do not sign any documents from the property owner or management company. Do not discuss the case on social media. Every word you say to the adjuster is being recorded and transcribed, and every word will be used to narrow what the complex is willing to pay. The first thing a family should do — before returning that call — is talk to a lawyer who handles negligent security cases. The lawyer speaks to the adjuster, not the family.
Play 2: The fast settlement check with a release buried under it. The adjuster may offer a check quickly — sometimes within weeks. It will arrive with paperwork that, if signed, releases the complex and its insurance company from any further claim. The check may look substantial. It will not be. It is designed to close the file before the family understands what the case is actually worth, before the foreseeability evidence is gathered, and before a lawyer can evaluate the full insurance tower.
The counter: Never sign a release from the property owner or its insurer without having it reviewed by a lawyer who handles wrongful death and negligent security cases. A release signed in grief, before the evidence is preserved, before the coverage is confirmed, and before the full extent of the loss is understood, is exactly what the insurance company is counting on. Once it is signed, the case is over — no matter what the evidence later shows.
Play 3: The “crime is not foreseeable” defense. The insurance company’s lawyers will argue that the shooting was an unpredictable, random act of third-party criminal violence that the property owner could not have prevented. They will say “no one could have seen this coming.” They will try to frame the shooting as an isolated incident unconnected to any prior criminal activity at the complex.
The counter: This is where the Timberwalk foreseeability evidence destroys the defense. If the Odessa PD calls-for-service records show a pattern of prior violent crime at the complex — prior assaults, prior robberies, prior drug activity, prior police responses — then “no one could have seen this coming” is a lie the documents will expose. The internal incident reports and tenant complaints reinforce it: if tenants had been telling management about dangerous conditions and management did nothing, the foreseeability element is met and the defense collapses. This is why the evidence preservation letter goes out in the first 48 hours — not because we want to be aggressive, but because the documents that defeat this defense are the same documents the complex is legally allowed to destroy if no one asks for them in time.
Play 4: Blame the victim. In some cases, the defense will try to pin percentage points of fault on the person who was shot — arguing they were involved in a dispute, that they were in an area they should not have been, or that they somehow contributed to the situation. Texas follows a modified comparative negligence rule with a 51% bar: if the victim is found to be more than 51% at fault, the family’s recovery is barred. In an unprovoked shooting scenario, comparative fault exposure is minimal — but the defense will look for any angle to push the percentage up, because every point they pin on the victim is money off the complex’s bill.
The counter: In an unprovoked shooting, we shut this down early. The victim’s status as a resident or invitee — someone with a legal right to be on the property — establishes the highest duty the landowner owes. If the shooting was unprovoked, there is no conduct by the victim to apportion fault to. The defense knows this, which is why they push the narrative early, through the recorded-statement call, before the family has a lawyer to stop it.
Play 5: The “we had security” defense. The complex will point to whatever security measures it had in place — a gate, a camera, a courtesy officer, a patrol — and argue that it met its duty. The existence of security measures is not the same as the adequacy of security measures. A gate that was broken for six months is not security. A camera that was not recording is not security. A patrol that was understaffed or that skipped the complex on the night of the shooting is not security. The question is not what the complex had on paper but what it actually maintained and whether those measures were reasonable in light of the known crime risk.
The counter: Security contracts, patrol logs, gate-entry data, maintenance records, and the testimony of former employees and tenants expose the gap between what the complex claimed to have and what it actually had. The negligent undertaking theory — if the complex voluntarily undertook security measures but implemented them negligently or discontinued them without notice — imposes liability even if the complex had no original duty at that threshold. You cannot advertise security, charge rent for security, and then not provide it.
Case Value: What a Fatal Apartment Shooting Case Is Worth
We are going to give you honest numbers, because the most dangerous thing a lawyer can do is imply a result without telling you what drives it.
In a fatal apartment shooting negligent security case in Ector County, based on the factors that govern these cases in this venue, the value range is extraordinarily sensitive to the foreseeability evidence — specifically, the volume, recency, and similarity of prior violent crimes at this apartment complex as documented in Odessa PD calls-for-service records and the complex’s own internal incident logs.
On the lower end — if few prior violent incidents are documented at the complex, the complex had reasonable security measures in place, and insurance coverage is limited to a standard $1 million liability policy — the conservative Ector County venue will suppress value. In that scenario, a case may resolve in the range of $750,000 to $1,500,000. That is not a prediction. It is the floor of what a case with thin foreseeability evidence and limited coverage looks like in this venue.
On the higher end — if discovery reveals a documented pattern of prior shootings, assaults, or armed robberies at the complex with management awareness and no meaningful security upgrades, combined with gross negligence findings supporting punitive damages and a layered insurance program with primary plus umbrella coverage — the case value escalates substantially even in a conservative venue. In that scenario, a case may reach $3,000,000 to $8,500,000 or more, depending on the decedent’s age, earning capacity, and family structure.
The decedent’s age, occupation, earnings history, and life expectancy drive the economic damages component. A young worker in the Permian Basin oil industry with decades of earning capacity ahead will carry a higher lost-earning-capacity figure than an older retiree. The family structure — surviving spouse, children, dependent parents — determines who the wrongful death beneficiaries are and what each beneficiary’s loss looks like in dollar terms.
Comparative fault exposure is likely minimal in an unprovoked shooting, which means the full value of the case is not reduced by the victim’s share of fault. This is an advantage: in many premises cases, the defense can shave 10-20% off the verdict through comparative fault. In an unprovoked shooting, that lever is largely unavailable to the defense.
Insurance coverage must be confirmed early. Many apartment complexes carry only $1 million to $2 million in primary coverage, with umbrella policies that may or may not respond. Some policies contain assault-and-battery exclusions. If the primary coverage is $1 million and there is no umbrella, the case value is constrained by the available coverage — unless we can reach a parent company or REIT with deeper pockets. The coverage investigation is as important as the liability investigation.
In Texas, a Stowers-style demand — a properly framed settlement offer within policy limits, made when liability and damages are reasonably clear — can force the insurer to choose between settling within its policy and exposing its insured to an excess verdict. If the insurer refuses a reasonable Stowers demand and the case later settles or is tried for more than the policy limits, the insurer may be liable for the excess. This is one of the most powerful leverage tools in Texas personal injury law, and it becomes available once the evidence is developed enough to show clear liability and damages.
Past results depend on the facts of each case and do not guarantee future outcomes. The figures above are ranges based on the factors that govern these cases, not a promise about what your case will produce. What we can promise is that we will investigate thoroughly, preserve evidence aggressively, and build the strongest case the facts allow.
The First 72 Hours: What to Do Now
If your family has lost someone in this shooting, here is what the first 72 hours should look like — whether or not you call us.
Medical first, always. If anyone was injured and survived, their medical treatment is the foundation of the survival action. Symptoms can be delayed, and the defense will exploit any gap between the incident and the first documented medical visit. Every medical record, every imaging study, every doctor’s note is evidence. Follow the treating physicians’ instructions and keep every appointment.
Do not speak to the apartment complex’s insurance company. We said this above, and we are saying it again because it is the most common and most damaging mistake families make in the first days after a fatal shooting. The adjuster’s call will feel like kindness. It is not. It is procedure. Decline to give a recorded statement. Decline to sign anything. Say: “I need to speak with an attorney before I discuss this.” Then call one.
Do not discuss the case on social media. Nothing. Not a post, not a comment, not a shared article. The insurance company and its investigators monitor social media, and a single post can be taken out of context and used to minimize the loss. This is not paranoia. It is standard defense practice.
Preserve everything you have. Texts, voicemails, photos, lease agreements, correspondence with the apartment complex, anything the decedent wrote or sent about security concerns at the property. If your loved one complained about the complex — about the gates, the lighting, the people hanging around, the lack of security — those complaints are evidence of the complex’s notice of the danger. Save them all.
Contact a lawyer who handles negligent security and wrongful death cases in Texas. The preservation letter — the formal demand that the complex owner, management company, and any security contractor freeze all CCTV footage, gate logs, patrol records, incident reports, and tenant complaints — is the single most time-sensitive step in the entire case. That letter can go out the day you call. Every day it does not go out, evidence is being overwritten, purged, or “lost.”
Understand that the civil and criminal cases run on separate clocks. The criminal prosecution of the shooter is a separate process handled by the Ector County District Attorney’s office. It does not pause your civil statute of limitations. The civil deadline runs independently — two years from the date of death in Texas, for both wrongful death and survival actions. Do not wait for the criminal case to resolve before exploring your civil rights.
How a Case Like This Is Actually Built
Here is the chronological walk of how a negligent security wrongful death case is built — from the first call to resolution.
Week one. The preservation demand goes out — to the complex owner, the management company, and any security contractor. This letter freezes the CCTV footage, the gate logs, the patrol records, the incident reports, the tenant complaints, the maintenance records, and the personnel files. A personal representative may need to be appointed by a court — the person Texas law authorizes to bring the family’s wrongful death claim. We handle that appointment. The Odessa PD calls-for-service records request goes out, framed for a three-to-five-year history at the complex address.
Weeks two through eight. The records come in. The calls-for-service data is analyzed — how many calls, what kind, how recent, how similar to the shooting. Internal incident reports are reviewed. Tenant complaints are cataloged. The lease agreements are examined for security representations. The insurance coverage is confirmed — primary limits, umbrella layers, any exclusions. A premises liability and negligent security expert and a criminologist are retained to analyze the crime data and opine on whether the shooting was foreseeable and what security measures were industry-standard for a complex with this crime profile.
Months two through six. Discovery is in full swing. Depositions of the property management company’s corporate representative — the person who can be asked under oath about security decisions, budgets, tenant complaints, and prior incidents — are scheduled. Former employees are identified and deposed. The insurance coverage picture is fully mapped. The forensic economist completes the lost-earning-capacity projection. The damages model is built.
Months six through twelve. Mediation is appropriate after key discovery is produced but before depositions of corporate representatives — the defense may be more receptive to settlement once the volume of prior crime data is on the table but before they have fully developed their comparative-fault defenses. A Stowers demand is evaluated. If the evidence shows clear foreseeability and the insurance company refuses to settle within policy limits, the case is prepared for trial.
Trial. In Ector County, the jury that decides what a life was worth is twelve people from the community. Working people. Oilfield people. People who understand apartment living and security concerns. Voir dire explores their views on personal responsibility for one’s own safety versus a landowner’s duty, their experiences with apartment security, and any biases about gun violence that could translate into victim-blaming. The case is presented: the prior crime data, the broken security promises, the tenant complaints that were ignored, and the life that was taken because nobody fixed what everyone knew was broken.
Who We Are
Ralph Manginello is our managing partner. He has been a licensed Texas attorney since November 6, 1998 — 27+ years of trial practice. He is admitted to the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Texas, and he has spent his career in courtrooms representing people who were injured or killed by someone else’s choices. Before he was a lawyer, he was a journalist. That training — find the facts, follow the documents, tell the truth — is exactly what a negligent security case demands. He is a member of the Texas Trial Lawyers Association and the Houston Bar Association. Ralph’s full background is here.
Lupe Peña is our associate attorney. He has been a licensed Texas attorney since 2012 and is admitted to the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Texas. Before he came to our side of the table, Lupe spent years inside a national insurance-defense firm — the rooms where adjusters and their lawyers decide how to deny, delay, and devalue claims exactly like yours. He knows how the claims software values a case. He knows which doctors the insurers send claimants to for “independent” medical exams that are not independent. He knows the delay tactics, the surveillance, and the settlement leverage points. He now uses all of that knowledge for injured people and grieving families. Lupe is fluent in Spanish and conducts full consultations in Spanish without an interpreter. Lupe’s full background is here.
We take these cases on contingency. That means we do not get paid unless we win your case. Our fee is 33.33% of the recovery if the case settles before trial and 40% if it goes to trial. You pay nothing out of pocket. The consultation is free. The first call costs you nothing and commits you to nothing. What it does is start the clock working for you instead of against you — because the day you call is the day the preservation letter goes out, and the preservation letter is what stops the evidence from disappearing.
We have recovered more than $50 million for our clients across our years of practice. That is a firm marketing aggregate, not a promise about your case. What it tells you is that we have been in the rooms where insurance companies decide whether to pay, and we know how to make them pay.
We serve families across Texas, including Odessa, Midland, and the entire Permian Basin. Contact us or call 1-888-ATTY-911. The line is answered 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, by live staff — not an answering service. Hablamos Español.
Frequently Asked Questions
Can I sue the apartment complex if someone was shot on the property?
Yes — if the property owner knew, or should have known, that violent crime was occurring on the property and failed to take reasonable security measures to protect residents and their guests. Under Texas premises liability law, a landowner has a duty to protect invitees from foreseeable third-party criminal acts. The question is whether the shooting was foreseeable based on prior criminal activity at or near the complex, evaluated under the Timberwalk foreseeability factors: proximity, recency, frequency, and similarity. If the Odessa Police Department was repeatedly called to the complex for violent incidents and the management did nothing to upgrade security, the shooting may have been foreseeable — and the complex may be liable.
How long do I have to file a wrongful death lawsuit in Texas?
Texas law gives surviving family members two years from the date of death to file both wrongful death and survival actions. This deadline is set by the Texas statute of limitations and runs independently of any criminal prosecution. There are narrow tolling provisions, but you should never rely on an exception without confirming it with a lawyer. The two-year clock is the governing rule, and missing it bars the case permanently — no matter how strong the evidence is.
Does the criminal case against the shooter affect my civil case?
The criminal and civil cases are separate. The criminal prosecution is handled by the Ector County District Attorney and addresses the shooter’s criminal conduct. The civil case is your family’s case against the property owner for failing to prevent the shooting. The civil case does not depend on a criminal conviction — it can proceed in parallel and can succeed even if the criminal case is delayed, reduced, or results in an acquittal. The civil standard of proof is different (preponderance of the evidence, not beyond a reasonable doubt), and the civil defendants are different (the property owner, not the shooter).
What if the apartment complex had a gate, cameras, or a security guard?
The existence of security measures is not the same as the adequacy of security measures. If the gate was broken and never fixed, the cameras were not recording, or the security patrol was understaffed or not performing its contracted duties, those “security measures” may actually be evidence of negligence — the complex held itself out as providing security it did not actually maintain. Under the negligent undertaking theory, if a complex voluntarily undertakes security measures but implements them negligently or discontinues them without notice, Texas law imposes liability for the unreasonable execution or abandonment of that undertaking. The question is not what the complex had on paper but what it actually maintained and whether those measures were reasonable for a property with its known crime profile.
How much is a fatal apartment shooting case worth?
The value depends on the foreseeability evidence, the decedent’s age and earning capacity, the family structure, and the available insurance coverage. In Ector County, a case with thin foreseeability evidence and limited coverage may resolve in the range of $750,000 to $1,500,000. A case with documented prior violent crime at the complex, gross negligence findings, and layered insurance may reach $3,000,000 to $8,500,000 or more. These are not predictions — they are ranges based on the factors that govern these cases. Past results depend on the facts of each case and do not guarantee future outcomes. An honest evaluation of your case requires a thorough review of the evidence and the coverage, which is what the free consultation provides.
What evidence disappears fastest?
Surveillance footage is the most urgent — apartment complex CCTV systems typically overwrite on a 7-to-30-day cycle. If no preservation letter has been sent, the footage may already be gone. Internal incident reports and tenant security complaints are held by the property management company and can be purged on the company’s own retention schedule. Security patrol logs and gate-entry data may be overwritten automatically or destroyed by the security contractor after a short retention period. Police calls-for-service records are generally retained long-term, but they must be formally requested. The evidence that decides the case is the evidence that disappears first, which is why the preservation letter goes out the day you call.
What if the victim was partly at fault?
Texas follows a modified comparative negligence rule with a 51% bar. If the victim is found to be more than 51% at fault, the family’s recovery is barred. In an unprovoked shooting, comparative fault exposure is minimal — the victim was a resident or invitee with a legal right to be on the property, and the shooting was the criminal act of a third party. The defense may try to pin percentage points on the victim, but in an unprovoked scenario, there is little conduct to apportion fault to. Every percentage point the defense tries to assign is money off the complex’s bill, which is why the defense pushes this narrative early — through the recorded-statement call, before the family has a lawyer.
Will I have to go to trial?
Most negligent security cases settle before trial, but the strongest settlements are the ones built as if trial is inevitable. Mediation is typically appropriate after key discovery is produced and the foreseeability evidence is on the table. A Stowers demand — a properly framed settlement offer within policy limits — can force the insurer to settle or expose its insured to an excess verdict. Whether your case settles or goes to trial depends on the evidence, the insurance coverage, and whether the defendant and its insurer are willing to accept responsibility. We prepare every case for trial from day one, because that preparation is what makes settlement possible.
Can I afford a lawyer for a wrongful death case?
Yes. We take these cases on contingency — we do not get paid unless we win. The fee is 33.33% of the recovery if the case settles before trial and 40% if it goes to trial. You pay nothing out of pocket. The consultation is free. The first call costs nothing and commits you to nothing. The preservation letter, the records requests, the expert retention, and the full investigation are all funded by the firm and recovered from the settlement or verdict. Every family, regardless of financial circumstances, has access to the same legal representation.
How is Attorney911 different from other firms?
Two things. First, Ralph Manginello has 27+ years of Texas trial experience and approaches every case with a journalist’s instinct for the documents that prove the story. Second, Lupe Peña is a former insurance-defense attorney who sat in the rooms where adjusters and their lawyers decided how to devalue claims — and now uses that knowledge for families. He knows the playbook from the inside because he used to run it. That dual perspective — the trial lawyer who has been in courtrooms for decades and the insider who knows how the other side values and defends claims — is what families get when they call us. And we serve families fully in Spanish. Hablamos Español.
Your Next Step
If someone you love was killed in this shooting, the evidence that could hold the property owner accountable is disappearing right now — on a schedule set by the companies that hold it, not by the court. The surveillance footage. The gate logs. The incident reports. The tenant complaints. Every day that passes without a preservation letter is a day the proof gets weaker.
Call us at 1-888-ATTY-911. The line is answered 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, by live staff. The consultation is free. You pay nothing unless we win. And if we are not the right fit for your family, we will tell you that honestly and help you find someone who is.
We are Attorney911 — The Manginello Law Firm, PLLC. Legal Emergency Lawyers. We handle wrongful death and negligent security cases across Texas, including Odessa, Midland, and the entire Permian Basin. Hablamos Español.
Past results depend on the facts of each case and do not guarantee future outcomes. This page is legal information, not legal advice. No attorney-client relationship is formed by reading this page or contacting the firm.