On July 8, 2024, deputies with the Hillsborough County Sheriff’s Office responded to a 911 call for a person with gunshot wounds near the 5800 block of North Cameron Avenue in Tampa. Officers found 53-year-old Juan Rafols with an upper-body gunshot wound; he was pronounced dead at the scene. Investigators say the shooting followed a verbal dispute between Rafols and his brother, Joe Ruiz, 38, that escalated into the fatal encounter.

The next day Ruiz went to the University of South Florida police expressing a desire to surrender. HCSO detectives interviewed him and say he confessed to shooting his brother; he was arrested without incident and charged with second-degree murder with a firearm and tampering with physical evidence. A funeral service for Juan Rafols was held at MacDonald Funeral Home on July 20, 2024, with a visitation beforehand.

If anyone has information about the dispute or what led up to the shooting, please share details with investigators.