Friend describes 'senseless' death outside Saratoga bar

There has been a recent update to this story: Brothers charged with manslaughter after Saratoga bar death

SARATOGA SPRINGS – Mark C. French survived pancreatic cancer. But the 6-foot-5-inch retired corrections officer, who his best friend Kevin Gordon said had grown weak from surgery and treatment, didn’t survive a visit to a Caroline Street bar to celebrate his race track winnings.

Last Saturday night, the 56-year-old French was celebrating his $2,000 win at the Saratoga Race Course with his son, Nick, at Clancy’s Tavern, Gordon said. They chose the well-known local bar because French was friends with the Clancy family, some of who spent the day with him at the track.

At about 11 p.m., the father and son had their fill of beers and called for an Uber. Gordon said as they went to leave two men, who were allegedly causing trouble in the bar and were being removed, came up behind Nick French and allegedly “sucker punched” him in the head.

Mark French saw it and came to help and then he got punched in the back of the head.

“He fell down so hard, he hit his head on the pavement and went into full cardiac arrest,” Gordon said. “When he went to Albany Med, they put him on life support. But he was on blood thinners and he took such a wallop. He didn’t have a chance. He never came out of it. It’s senseless, just senseless.”

Brothers Jordan and James Garafalo, ages 38 and 27, who run a local paving business, were charged with felony second-degree assault. After French's death, Saratoga Springs police said the Saratoga County district attorney is exploring additional charges.

French’s death marks the first violent death in the city since 2018 when a man stabbed and killed his wife’s cousin. But it also follows two other violent incidents on Caroline Street, including a large brawl and stabbing in June, and a stabbing Aug. 10. Both those victims survived.

A woman who answered the phone at Clancy's Tuesday said no one was at the bar who could talk about the incident.

The Garafalo brothers, who live in Saratoga Springs, have faced other recent charges. Police blotters, as printed in Saratoga Today, note that in the last year, city police charged Jordan Garafalo with felony assault, harassment, criminal mischief, criminal contempt, criminal possession of a weapon and acts to harm a child under 17. James was recently charged with felony criminal mischief.

A call to their paving business was not immediately returned Tuesday. The district attorney's office did not say if there is an attorney representing the Garafalos, who remain in the Saratoga County jail.

Gordon met French when they were in kindergarten in Whitehall. They were close throughout their school years, playing sports, including football, at which the tall and strong French excelled. 

After graduating high school in 1983, they stayed close, sharing a hunting camp in Newcomb and buying a two-family house together in Glens Falls, with Gordon living downstairs and French upstairs. They also jointly donated hundreds of turkeys each Thanksgiving to the needy in Minerva. And when Gordon went through a divorce, French offered his extra bedroom to his friend.

“That was the kind of person he was, always helping people,” Gordon said.

When the Frenches lived on Jenee Way in Saratoga Springs, he was working as a corrections officer at Great Meadow prison in Comstock. Gordon called the Frenches “the life of the neighborhood.”

“Every Friday, that’s where everyone came for the potlucks, the happy hour and they all came to Mark French’s house,” Gordon said. “Then he got sick. They found a tumor on his pancreas, but they caught it in the early stages. … He was feeble and sick and took disability retirement from the state.”

After he recovered, French and his wife, Angela, moved to South Carolina. He came back recently for the funeral of another Whitehall friend and decided to stay a week longer with Nick, who still lives in Saratoga Springs. 

“His wife said he had the best week he had in years,” Gordon said. “He loved Saratoga and he loved the track. He had a really great day.” 

After being attacked Saturday night, his son, dazed from the blow to his head, said he saw his father bleeding from his ears in the middle of the road, Gordon said.

“Two of Nick’s friends held Mark until the EMTs got there,” Gordon said. “He was turning colors. They knew that he was in cardiac arrest.”

Gordon, who is Nick and his sister’s godfather, said he’s struggling.

“This is the hardest thing I have ever gone through,” Gordon said. “I’m taking on the kids. We made a pact with each other. Whoever went first, we would take care of the other family … They took a father, a husband, a friend. … All I have are the memories.”

"Mark was a kind, gentle, and passionate father, husband, brother, uncle, son, and friend," his paid obituary says. "He was a force of nature; determined to provide for his family and extend support to anyone in his life that needed it. He would give the shirt off his back to any of his loved ones and until his last day lived life with purpose."

Calling hours will be  from 2 to 4 p.m. Friday at Burke and Bussing Funeral Home on North Broadway, Saratoga Springs. A celebration of life will follow at the Knights of Columbus on Pine Road.

“It will be very, very large,” Gordon said. “A vast amount of people really cared about him.”

City response to violence

City officials have reacted to a recent spate of violence on Caroline Street by adding more police patrols, including by the Saratoga County Sheriff’s Office. The City Council has also passed a resolution to close the bars earlier, by 2 a.m.

But as Supervisor Tara Gaston pointed out, Saturday’s incident happened at 11 p.m. while the stabbing in June took place at around midnight.

“I’m for closing the bars earlier, but I don’t know if that is going to solve the problem,” Gaston said. “I have requested a meeting with the police chief (Shane Crooks) and Commissioner of Public Safety (Robin Dalton). We need to have a collaborative discussion on what’s going on, talk to law enforcement to see what they are seeing, how did it happen. What is taking place?”

Supervisor Matthew Veitch said a change in bar hours will require all Saratoga County pubs to shutter early, and at this moment there is little support for the measure. 

And Commissioner of Accounts John Franck said the City Council attempted closing bars early two other times. The first time it didn't pass, and the second time the county was unwilling to entertain the notion. What worries him is that usually problems on Caroline Street don't take place during the track season as the bars are packed with tourists having fun.

"Most of the bad incidents we have had happened in May and June," Franck said. "October or November. People are here to have fun, not get into bar fights."