Angry foreshadowing to fatal gunfire at the Merge

By Lou Michel, The Buffalo News

Minutes before a dishwasher known for his angry temperament opened fire and killed a teenage sous chef at a Buffalo restaurant Saturday, he offered a cryptic warning of what was about to happen.

“Life is going to change for a lot of people,” Ernesto Arechavaleta- Taureaux reportedly said.

When the bullets stopped flying, Ricky Costner Jr., 18, was mortally wounded in the chest, and his father, Ricky Costner Sr., 47, the restaurant’s general manager, was struck twice by gunfire.

The older Costner wept Monday as he recalled the final moments before he and his only son, who had left another restaurant last fall to help his father at the popular Merge restaurant at 439 Delaware Ave., became random victims of workplace violence.

“About five minutes before he started shooting, he had told a server that life was going to change for a lot of people,” the father said. “But we had no advance warning. He started shooting.”

Adding to the horrible loss and seeming senselessness of it was speculation that the shooting may have been provoked by the dishwasher’s assertions that a preparation cook had allegedly harassed him during a work shift two months ago by repeatedly brushing up against him.

Bernard Richardson, the preparation cook, denies bumping up against Arechavaleta-Taureaux but says he is sure the dishwasher was gunning for him.

“The only reason I’m living is because I was downstairs in the basement getting food from the cooler. I’m pretty sure he was coming after me, because we’d exchanged words before,” Richardson said. “I was on my way upstairs when I heard the gunfire, and I thought someone was robbing the place and killing people.”

What makes Richardson so certain he was a target, he said, was the cold stare Arechavaleta- Taureaux fixed on him when he arrived for work Saturday morning.

“It was a real angry and hard stare. I said, ‘What is your problem? Do you have a problem with me?’ He stared again and put his hand up in the air and waved a finger and said, ‘No problem at all.’ After that, he disappeared, and when I was coming up from the basement, I heard the shots,” Richardson said.

Frightened, Richardson said, he fled out a back door but could hear Costner Sr. yelling, “Bernard, Bernard call an ambulance.

“I called 911 for the ambulance in the parking lot, and as I was coming around to the front of the building, Ricky Sr. came out of the restaurant in blood-soaked clothes with Ernesto’s gun in his hand.

“I took the gun from him and went back in the restaurant. I heard the head chef [Daniel Church] saying, ‘I need help. I need help.’ I thought he was shot. As I went to the bar, I noticed Little Ricky had been shot and Dan was holding down Ernesto, who was biting him.

“That’s when I came over with the gun, and I started kicking Ernesto so Dan could get the better of him. And at the same time, I was telling Little Ricky to ‘hold on, hold on.’ He was somewhat conscious,” Richardson said, adding: “Please let people know that me and Little Ricky were tight and that I really liked working with him.”

Describing his son as a fun-loving young man with a big heart, Costner — who was released Sunday from Erie County Medical Center — struggled with the idea that his need for a sous chef last fall might have inadvertently put his son in harm’s way.

“My son quit his job at TGI Friday’s on Main Street in downtown to come and work for me after I had three cooks quit at the same time last October,” Costner said. “At Christmas, he spent two of his paychecks buying his sisters and other family members gifts. He spent way more than he should have.”

In contrast, Arechavaleta-Taureaux, 51, of Porter Avenue, was anything but kind to those around him, according to co-workers and the shooter’s neighbors, who said he was distant and cold.

“If you bumped into him accidentally as you passed him, he’d say, ‘Don’t touch me. Don’t you ever touch me,’ ” Costner said.

Other strange behavior also was described. A native of Cuba, Arechavaleta- Taureaux sometimes showed up for work in unusual attire. “He’d come dressed in a suit to wash dishes,” one of the restaurant manager’s daughters said.

Richardson said, “He’d come in wearing firemen boots and a big long cape, a coat without his arms in the sleeves.”

Finally, at about 11:35 a. m. Saturday inside the vegetarian restaurant, Arechavaleta- Taureaux uttered a statement to a female table server, who normally works a later shift. He told her that life was about to change, according to workers.

It is unknown whether she had the chance to tip off other workers. What is known, according to police, is that at approximately 11:40 a. m., Arechavaleta-Taureaux pulled out a 9 mm Smith & Wesson handgun and began shooting.

After a fierce struggle to disarm the suspect by other workers, police arrived and arrested him. He was charged the second-degree murder, second-degree attempted murder, second-degree assault and criminal possession of a loaded weapon.

Costner — his upper left arm bandaged Monday — said he and family members want Ricky Jr. remembered for the hard worker and devoted son he was.

“He’d left Hutchinson-Technical High School before graduating but got his GED before his former classmates had graduated, and he was looking into attending a culinary school,” said Costner, who has worked in the restaurant business for 20 years.

Tears rolling down his face, the father recalled how his son had bought him a shirt and tie, cologne and a watch for Christmas — all on a modest wage of $9 an hour. And as Costner spoke of his son’s devotion and love for his mother, Catalina, the front door of the family’s West Side home opened, and in walked the oldest of the Costners’ four children, Tara, with her toddler daughter, from Philadelphia.

Pulling himself together, Costner bent down, put on a smile for his granddaughter, reached out his arms and said, “Give Grandpa a hug.”

Then he stood back up and, for what seemed the longest moment, silently hugged his daughter, Tara.

In addition to his parents and older sister, Ricky Jr. is survived by two younger sisters, Sara and Victoria.

Because the father is the sole wage earner and the Merge has been closed until further notice, a fund has been established to help the Costner family.

Donations can be made online by going to the restaurant’s Web site: mergebuffalo. com.