Man arrested after racist threat found at SLO County business
A Santa Maria man was arrested Friday morning after he allegedly left a racist, threatening note on the window of a Nipomo pilates studio, the San Luis Obispo County Sheriff’s Office confirmed in a news release.
Ricardo Salazar, 47, is alleged to have written “racially driven hate speech” that “contained threats of violence,” the news release said.
The note was taped to the window of Powerhouse Barre and Pilates near the 500 block of West Tefft Street in Nipomo. The threat was directed at the pilates studio owner and founder, Marissa Wilson, who is Black.
“I don’t like Black People in this city. So you back to yo Africa GORILLA,” the note read in black marker. “Im Goin to Killing you beach.”
Salazar was arrested on suspicion of communicating a threat to someone that can result in great bodily injury or death with a hate crime penalty enhancement.
He was booked at San Luis Obispo County Jail with bail of $100,000.
“I just felt heartbroken. I felt sad. I felt disappointment,” Wilson told the Tribune as she recounted what it was like reading the note. “I felt uneasy because how can someone be so angry? We haven’t done anything to this person. We’re just here.”
How the arrest went down
Just before Wilson arrived at her studio Friday morning, she received a call from one of her employees informing her that a man who had been sitting outside the studio almost every Friday at 6 a.m. for months was back again, and this time he left a note.
Wilson didn’t know the exact message written on the window until hours after she was told about it. All she knew was that it was racist and threatening.
According to the news release, a citizen followed Salazar and alerted sheriff’s deputies to his location. This citizen was Wilson, the woman who was threatened, Wilson told the Tribune.
When she pulled into her studio parking lot, she saw the man’s car — a black Ford Expedition — and decided to follow it as it drove out of the parking lot.
Her clients and employees had already called 911 and she wanted to make sure the man who had been repeatedly loitering outside her studio was caught. She also called dispatch as she was following Salazar.
Salazar pulled into the parking lot where House of Prayer is located off of Frontage Road and Wilson followed. She waited for about 30 minutes then said she notified House of Prayer that a man who has been stalking her was in their parking lot and that police were on the way. Sheriff’s deputies arrested Salazar shortly after Wilson left the scene.
Man had been seen outside studio for months
Salazar’s car was seen parked in front of the studio almost every Friday during the 6 a.m. class., Wilson told the Tribune.
The studio has large glass windows and a glass door facing the nearest parking spots. Two spots in particular could provide someone who stayed in their car a clear view of the class.
A client noticed Salazar inside his parked car in one of those spots on April 1, and Wilson, clients and employees alike noticed the car would regular appear during the Friday 6 a.m. class.
Shannon Mako, the studio’s social media manager who also takes 6 a.m. classes regularly, told the Tribune when she looked back through photos she has taken for the studio’s social accounts that the car appears as far back as early March.
“It was dark out so we didn’t notice at the time, must have not seen him in the car or paid much attention because it was too dark and the studio was lit up,” Mako told the Tribune. “That was a really weird feeling to look back on that and see.”
Wilson and Mako both told the Tribune that when it was made aware that Salazar would regular park there, employees and clients alike made efforts to get to the parking spots first. And the efforts seemed to work — for at least two weeks Salazar’s car was not seen parked outside the studio, though it is unclear if he may have been parked in a spot further away.
That changed on May 20, when his car returned to one of the spots, but this time he was not sitting in the front seat.
Wilson said when she first arrived at the studio, she figured he was not inside his car, but as class began she noticed that he was in the car, but in the back seat.
Clients also noticed the car had returned, and they took photos of the license plate to give to authorities, Wilson and Mako said.
After the May 20 class finished, Wilson decided to confront Salazar and told him to leave and not come back. She also called 911, which then called the Sheriff’s Office.
Studio owner said deputy was reluctant to respond
When she called the Sheriff’s Office to report Salazar’s repeated parking outside the studio, the responding sheriff’s officer didn’t seem to want to respond, Wilson told the Tribune.
“I said, ‘there’s this guy that’s been sitting here. He’s been here more often than we’ve known, and I feel like it’s really weird. Can you come and, like, drive by?’ And he’s like, ‘Well, I’m all the way in Oceano. Do you really need me to come by? And I said, ‘Yeah, it’s scary,’” Wilson said.
Wilson said the deputy then pushed back and asked if the business had shades, if her door was locked and if he was doing anything. She told him Salazar was watching her and the class and that it was frightening.
“He’s like, ‘Well, if I come, what do you want me to do? Knock on his window and tell him to move?’ And I said, ‘Yeah, we’re working out in our workout clothes. He can see us,” Wilson told the Tribune.
“The deputy said, ‘It’s not my fault you’re wearing those clothes and that he can see you wearing those clothes,” she continued. “I was baffled by that.”
Grace Norris, a spokesperson for the Sheriff’s Office, told the Tribune the first the office heard of this deputy’s alleged actions was when the Tribune asked about them. She said the office is following up on the allegations and it “is concerning if that is how it went.”
The deputy did eventually arrive to the scene, but by then Salazar had already left and was unable to be found. The office did have his description and license plate number, Norris confirmed to the Tribune in an email.
The following week — today — Salazar returned to the studio and allegedly taped the racist death threat to the window.
“It makes me feel so unsafe. Like I call in something that’s an emergency and no one responds to it,” Wilson said. “It’s disappointing a little bit that it had to escalate this much for someone to take action.”
Wilson confirmed in a text message to The Tribune that the Sheriff’s Office has since reached out to her to investigate this incident.
Nipomo pilates community worked together to protect business owner
It would have been easy for her clients and employees to stop showing up to the Friday 6 a.m. class, Wilson said. But they not only continued to show up, they worked together to protect her.
They put words into action when they began to leave early to an already early-morning class to park in the spots first, she said. And they also were on the phone with her when she reported Salazar on May 20, and they helped report Salazar Friday morning when he left the death threat.
Wilson said the community she’s found in Nipomo has helped her find a support system, especially after moving somewhere where she didn’t have as many family and friends. She noted how when she was on the phone with dispatch Friday morning following Salazar, the dispatcher noted that someone else had also called about the same incident.
Her clients also have been checking in on her throughout the day after they saw the message posted on her window.
“We all stayed there waiting for her (Marissa) to come back. We all stayed there taking pictures and evidence, and we all showed up the next week and the week after,” Mako told the Tribune. “And we’re going to show up next week, too, because it’s important to us to support her and nobody’s going to leave her alone.”
This story was originally published May 27, 2022 at 3:20 PM.
