A Gaithersburg man has been identified as the customer who died at Silver Diner after a May 21 altercation, according to a Wednesday statement from police.
Police are investigating the death of 49-year-old Fredi Torres following the altercation at the Rockville diner, and are asking anyone with information to come forward, according to the statement.
Police and Montgomery County Fire and Rescue Service (MCFRS) crews were dispatched at roughly 11:55 p.m. Wednesday to the restaurant at 12276 Rockville Pike in the Federal Plaza shopping center for the report of an assault, according to police.
According to the restaurant’s website, the diner is open until 2 a.m. on Wednesdays.
According to radio transmissions, the dispatcher said the caller reported a “drunken male” customer who was “upset” with the diner’s manager, according to police radio transmissions. The dispatcher said the caller reported the man had allegedly punched the manager, who began to bleed. The caller told the dispatcher the customer was being held on the ground, according to radio transmissions.
When the officers arrived, Torres was unresponsive, according to police. At 12:07 a.m., according to radio transmissions, officers reported the customer was unconscious and not breathing and that they were beginning CPR.
The call was then upgraded to a cardiac arrest and MCFRS crews, which had been waiting at the nearby fire station on Rollins Avenue until police secured the scene arrived at about 12:10 a.m. and confirmed over the radio that the man was not breathing and did not have a pulse.
The man was transported to Adventist HealthCare Shady Grove Medical Center in Rockville, according to police radio transmissions. In Wednesday’s statement, police said he was pronounced dead at the hospital.
In a Friday statement to Bethesda Today, Silver Diner spokesperson Vicki Bendure said the customer appeared to be intoxicated and was asked to leave the diner by the manager. The man left, then returned and went behind the restaurant’s counter and assaulted the manager, according to the statement.
Diner employees restrained the customer, who then passed out, according to the statement. The employees called 911.
“We were very saddened to learn of an incident at our Rockville location that resulted in a fatality following the restraint of a customer who appeared to be intoxicated,” Bendure said in the statement. “We are working closely with the police.”
Torres was transported to the Office of the Chief Medical Examiner in Baltimore for an autopsy to determine the cause and manner of death.
Detectives urge any restaurant customers who may have witnessed the incident to visit Crime Solvers of Montgomery County at www.crimesolversmcmd.org or to call 1-866-411-8477.
