The family of Cesar Montelongo Sr., a maintenance worker at the Clayton Pointe Apartments in Grand Prairie who was shot and killed after being mistaken for a burglar, is suing the apartment complex and the shooter.
Montelongo was shot and killed by a resident while checking for burst pipes on Christmas Eve, as previously reported in The Dallas Express.
The lawsuit claims that the apartment complex’s parent company, The ValCap Group, LLC, did not properly inform residents that maintenance workers would be checking for frozen pipes.
The suit further claims that the complex did not supply Montelongo with identifiable clothing that would identify him as an employee or security personnel with the property.
The Dallas Express contacted The ValCap Group, LLC, but no one was available to answer questions.
Grand Prairie police responded to a shooting call at the apartment complex on Christmas Eve around 6 p.m. and found Montelongo on a resident’s balcony, suffering from a gunshot wound.
He was checking on potentially frozen waterlines by accessing the apartment balconies.
The resident named in the lawsuit, who authorities have not publicly identified because he has not been charged with a crime, believed Montelongo was a burglar and fired a single shot, striking him through a window.
Police said the resident did not leave the scene and cooperated with the detectives, who, at the time, declined to make an arrest.
The family is seeking $1 million in damages in the lawsuit.
In an interview with The Dallas Morning News, Cesar Montelongo Jr. said that he could forgive the man who shot his father but still wanted justice for his death.
He described his father as hardworking and a dependable man.
In a Facebook post in late December, he thanked everyone who had shown support to him and his family.
“My family and I would like to say thank you for your kind words and for showing us so much support during this time. I know my dad would be grateful we have so many people on our side,” the post read.
Despite the tragic outcome of Montelongo’s encounter, crime has been on the rise across North Texas in recent years.
The Dallas Police Department clocked 6,638 burglaries in 2022, a year that also saw a 31% spike in justifiable homicides, a troubling dynamic reflective of City leaders’ failure to get the Dallas’ crime rate under control.
Too many companies have stopped supplying uniforms. And in the present dangerous atmosphere, people like maintenance employees, should be trained that they need to knock on doors to announce their presence and reason for being there. Truly a shame that this happened.
Get real, like a maintenance worker is going to knock on all the residence doors and tell them that he will be checking the pipes, when the Apartment complex could have contacted the tenants. And for that matter a shot to the back is the appropriate response?
The resident wasn’t being attacked. He’s watching out the window & decided to shoot the maintenance guy. Should be locked up for that.
Name the people not the LLC – https://valcapgroup.com/team/
So many people are so trigger happy nowadays, makes no sense. If you seen him through a window, you could have called the cops. People taking matters into their own hands. The shooter needs to be sued and they need to be locked up, he’s a dangerously armed person who shouldn’t be allowed to have a gun or to even be free. When did killing the innocent become legal…
If Alec Balwin gets charged, this person who intentionally shot to kill should get charged
Yep he gotta pay for that Dumb move.