The family of an Afghanistan war survivor spoke out Monday about the wounds he suffered on Ferguson Road in Dallas.
Mahir Amiri, 32, is in rehab, paralyzed from the waist down after being shot five times in December outside the Texaco Store in the 17700 block of Ferguson Road at I-635 LBJ Freeway.
Through an interpreter Monday, the man's 28-year-old wife Zahra Amiri spoke about her husband and their three children.
"He was extremely happy that finally he can come to the United States, have a safe environment for his kids. His main concern is the little girl with special needs that he thought he could get some help for. This is just heart breaking that this has happened," the wife said.
Mahir Amiri served as an interpreter with the US Military in Afghanistan.
He is the sole means of support for his family and he has no health insurance.
He was working as a security guard for the Texaco store at the time he was shot.
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"He was unwittingly thrown into a war zone," his attorney Charles Bennett said.
The lawyer has assembled reports of past assaults and threats made to other security guards at the location prior to Amiri's injury.
"The prior assaults show that the security company was not supervising. They weren't responding to what was going out there or paying any attention to what was going on out there. The businesses certainly weren't making sure that the security guard was able to do his job and protected when he was trying to protect them. And the city of Dallas wasn't responding to the calls that were being made," Bennett said.
The attorney is considering a lawsuit against the Texaco store and the security firm that was employed Amiri at the time and the City of Dallas.
"He was actually saving US Military lives over in Afghanistan when we were trying to help clean up his country," Bennett said. "He starts trying to protect us here when he gets to this country and he gets shot for it."
The City of Dallas filed a lawsuit against the Texaco Store last week, claiming the business failed to comply with police crime fighting requests to combat the drug dealers who linger outside.
Monday, Manager Abdullah Mahmood said he done everything police asked but he said police response to more than 100 calls he has logged to 9-1-1 the past year has been weak.
"They show up like one hour, two hour later, sometimes 20 minutes, and by the time they come all the people run away," Mahmood said.
Corey Crane, a supervisor with a different security firm the store employs now, said Dallas Police have been slow to respond when his people have been threatened by drug dealers at the store.
"If you're going to generate a lawsuit on an establishment, you need to at least show on your side you used due diligence on your side as well and I don't personally think the city has done that," Crane said.
No one has been arrested for the attack that crippled Mahir Amiri in December.
"She obviously wants the perpetrators to be brought to justice, the people that did this to her husband," the interpreter said for Zahra Amiri.
The interpreter has started a Go Fund Me page to receive donations for the family.
