Customers rushed to help an 8-year-old girl during the 2025 assault before the attacker was arrested and later pleaded guilty.
ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. — What began as a family trip to a favorite Albuquerque restaurant ended with strangers rushing to protect an injured 8-year-old girl, and more than a year later, the man who attacked her has been sentenced to 12 years in prison after pleading guilty to child abuse.
The girl’s father, Britton Rose, has described April 25, 2025, as an ordinary family outing before the violence began inside Saggio’s near the University of New Mexico. Rose told KOB that his daughter asked her mother to take her to see the fountain inside the restaurant while the family waited. Moments later, he heard a loud noise, screaming and his wife repeatedly shouting for someone to stop. By the time the confrontation ended, his daughter had suffered injuries that required 19 stitches and several people in the restaurant had intervened.
The role of those bystanders became one of the most notable parts of the early accounts. The criminal complaint, as reported by the Albuquerque Journal, said another restaurant customer struck the attacker with a tray after seeing what was happening. Rose and that man then helped stop the assault. KOB separately reported that people in the restaurant stepped in to help the child. Their intervention occurred before police arrested the suspect, Nichalas San Souci, outside the business.
The criminal case has now ended in a lengthy prison term. San Souci, 24, was sentenced July 28 to 12 years in the New Mexico Corrections Department, followed by three years of supervision. He had pleaded guilty March 27 to first-degree and third-degree child abuse. The Second Judicial District Court calendar listed his sentencing hearing for July 28 and identified the case as State of New Mexico v. Nichalas Shane San Souci. The district attorney’s office announced the sentence after the hearing.
The sequence inside the restaurant was reconstructed through witness statements, surveillance video and later interviews. Prosecutors said the child and San Souci did not know each other. The girl was looking at a decorative fountain or waterfall with her mother when San Souci struck her in the head with a glass beer bottle and injured her neck with the broken bottle. The Albuquerque Journal reported that an officer who reviewed restaurant security video saw San Souci take a bottle and smash it over the girl’s head.
The child’s mother told police that she turned after hearing her daughter scream and saw the man holding the girl from behind, according to the complaint described by the Journal. Rose, elsewhere in the restaurant, heard his wife yelling. He told KOB that he rushed toward the scene after hearing the disturbance. Later accounts from Rose emphasized how little warning the family had and how quickly other customers responded once they realized a child was being attacked.
The danger did not necessarily end when San Souci was first knocked down. Rose told KOB that San Souci later stood up and pulled out a knife. Rose said he initially thought the weapon might be intended for him, then became concerned that San Souci’s attention had shifted back toward the girl. He said he moved between the man and his daughter. Police later found San Souci outside the restaurant, and the Albuquerque Journal reported that officers found a knife on him after witnesses identified him.
The girl was transported to the University of New Mexico Hospital, where she received stitches and was released, according to the Journal. Rose later told KOB that his daughter was expected to be OK. His comments also conveyed the family’s disbelief that the assault had happened during a routine meal. The girl’s identity has not been used here because she is a minor and identifying her is unnecessary to explain either the crime or the court outcome.
San Souci’s explanation after the attack became part of the case record. Police and prosecutors said he indicated that he assaulted the child because she had gotten in his way. Rose said his daughter had done nothing to provoke the attack. Authorities said San Souci and the girl were strangers. That absence of any known prior relationship remained one of the central facts surrounding the case, distinguishing the assault from incidents rooted in a family dispute, an ongoing conflict or another known relationship.
The prosecution initially carried a different set of charges than those to which San Souci ultimately pleaded guilty. A Bernalillo County grand jury indicted him in May 2025 on child abuse resulting in great bodily harm, aggravated battery with a deadly weapon and aggravated assault with a deadly weapon. The assault charge was connected to allegations involving Rose and the knife. At that stage, District Attorney Sam Bregman said San Souci could face decades in prison if convicted on the original counts.
San Souci initially denied guilt in court. He pleaded not guilty after the indictment and was held in custody without bond while the case proceeded. KOAT reported that a state detention filing called the alleged conduct extreme and argued that release conditions were inappropriate. The early proceedings therefore centered on detention and preparations for prosecution, with the state treating the restaurant attack as a serious violent case involving a child and a deadly weapon.
By March 2026, the case took a different course. San Souci entered guilty pleas to one count of first-degree child abuse and one count of third-degree child abuse, according to the district attorney and court scheduling records. That plea resolved the question of guilt on those offenses and avoided a trial on the original indictment. The court then scheduled sentencing, where the focus shifted from whether San Souci had committed crimes to what punishment should follow his admissions.
At sentencing, San Souci apologized to the girl and her family, according to KOAT reporting cited by Law&Crime. He said he had been using drugs at the time of the assault but acknowledged that drug use did not excuse his conduct. He also indicated that he would accept the sentence. The court imposed 12 years in prison, and prosecutors said San Souci would remain under supervision for another three years after his release.
The sentencing means that a case once defined by a sudden struggle inside a busy restaurant is now defined legally by two child-abuse convictions and a fixed term of imprisonment. But the earliest public accounts also preserved another part of the event: the response of people who happened to be nearby. A restaurant patron used a tray to disrupt the attack, Rose moved to protect his daughter, and other customers helped as the incident unfolded. Those actions do not change the seriousness of what happened, but they form an important part of the documented sequence that preceded police intervention.
For Rose, the early aftermath included both anger and relief. He told KOB in 2025 that he was grateful his daughter was expected to recover and thankful to the people who helped the family. He also expressed relief that San Souci was being held while the prosecution was underway. Those comments were made before the guilty plea and well before the court determined the final punishment, but they show how the family understood the event in the days and weeks after the attack.
The July 28 sentence supplies the legal conclusion that was missing from those early interviews. San Souci will serve 12 years in state prison and then face three years of supervision. The available reporting does not identify any additional trial or sentencing proceeding still pending from the April 2025 incident. The case has therefore moved from an emergency inside a restaurant, through arrest and prosecution, to a final sentence imposed after San Souci admitted guilt.
Author note: Last updated Aug. 29, 2026.