The family of a U.S. Marine Corps veteran shot dead in a Houston's Galleria parking garage last year has filed a lawsuit against the mall, its parent company, and two private security firms, arguing that the men accused of killing him had already been banned from the property and should never have been allowed back inside. Anthony Sanders, 30, was fatally shot on June 3, 2025, after picking up his fiancée from her job at the mall with their 10-month-old son in the car.
The lawsuit, filed in Harris County District Court and first reported by ABC13, names Sanders' mother Frank Sanders, his fiancée Selena Patterson, and their young son as plaintiffs. It lists Simon Property Group, HG Galleria LLC, Allied Universal Security Services and GardaWorld Security Services as corporate defendants, alongside criminal suspects Justin Joshua Guzman, Marko Cinan and Nathaniel Ray Alvarez, according to KHOU 11. Sanders was shot in the mall's orange parking garage on Westheimer Road during the altercation, the outlet reports.
According to the family and their attorney, Guzman and Cinan had harassed Patterson before the confrontation escalated and the men shot Sanders. The lawsuit alleges that the suspects had been removed from The Galleria by security on several occasions, including just one day before the shooting on June 2, 2025.
Attorney Says the Shooting Was Preventable
Lead plaintiffs' attorney Muhammad Aziz, who represents the Sanders family, said the case centers on allegations that the suspects had previously been banned from the mall but returned anyway. Aziz described the suspects' activities on the property as rage-baiting and attempts to pick fights, and said the shooting was preventable if the defendants had enforced their own ban.
“A system is needed to prevent the suspects from returning to the property,” Aziz said, arguing that the mall and its security companies should have had a way to identify and stop people who had already been barred from returning. The lawsuit alleges premises liability and gross negligence, asserting that the fatal shooting followed a broader pattern of dangerous incidents at the complex, including three separate shooting incidents in and around The Galleria within a three-week span, per KHOU 11.
Frank Sanders said the loss has been devastating to the family, and that accountability is essential to ensure justice. Anthony Sanders and Patterson had gotten engaged the Easter before the shooting and were planning their wedding at the time he was killed.
Forensic Evidence and Diverging Bond Amounts
Houston Police Department forensic investigators recovered 14 fired shell casings from inside the suspects' black Chrysler 300 after the shooting and found no firearms or knives in or near Sanders' vehicle or the parking garage, according to Click2Houston. That evidence directly contradicts claims from defense attorneys that Sanders approached the suspects' car armed with a handgun.
The station's report also detailed diverging outcomes for the two men criminally charged. Guzman, a 22-year-old content creator who posts under the alias @guzmanhimself, had his murder bond reduced from $450,000 to $300,000 after meeting with homicide detectives, and posted bail. Cinan, meanwhile, remained held on a $1 million bond, per the same account.
The Galleria's Security Footprint and Crime Trends
The Galleria has defended its safety record publicly. In a 2025 security commitment statement, the mall said nearly 40 private security and off-duty police officers patrol the property during peak hours, backed by two armed K9 units, thousands of CCTV cameras, and automatic license plate readers, and that it operates a Department of Homeland Security Safety Act certified security program.
The Galleria, owned and operated by Simon Property Group, spans more than 2.4 million square feet of leasable space with over 400 stores, making it the largest shopping mall in Texas and drawing more than 30 million visitors a year, according to the Houston Chronicle. An analysis of Houston Police Department crime data by the Chronicle found that while crime around The Galleria rose in 2022 to slightly above pre-pandemic levels, average monthly reported offenses across the surrounding commercial area stayed largely flat over the prior five years.
Mall Cracks Down on Content Creators After the Shooting
The involvement of social media creators filming disruptive content at the mall has become part of the broader context around the case. Following the June 2025 shooting, Galleria management intensified enforcement against disruptive creators on the property, issuing a lifetime ban to livestreamer IShowSpeed in September 2025, according to Dexerto.
As of publication, Galleria representatives had not responded to a request for comment on whether Guzman, Cinan, or Alvarez had actually been banned from the mall before the shooting, according to ABC13, which said it had contacted the public relations company representing The Galleria and its parent company. The lawsuit seeks more than $1 million in damages.
Aziz, a partner at Abraham, Watkins, Nichols, Agosto, Aziz & Stogner, was named 2021 Texas Attorney of the Year by Texas Lawyer and previously represented more than 1,300 victims in the $800 million Las Vegas mass shooting settlement, according to the University of Houston Law Center. Hoodline has covered the case since June 2025, when the shooting first occurred and suspects were initially detained and released before Cinan and Guzman were later charged with murder.
