Rosalino Soto Juarez, 38, was fatally shot outside El Descanso Bar on Weedpatch Highway in Lamont, California, on June 30, 2023, just before midnight. The shooting followed a physical altercation that began when Juarez and a friend fought with another man and his associate. Surveillance footage captured the sequence of events leading up to the killing.

After the initial fight, Juarez and his friend re-entered the bar. When the friend stepped outside to use his phone, he was grabbed and his phone thrown to the ground by the other man’s companion. Juarez came back out to defend his friend and became engaged in a fight. According to court documents, Jose Gomez-Rivera then intervened and fired two shots from about six feet away, striking Juarez. Juarez was taken to Kern Medical, where he was pronounced dead. Gomez-Rivera fled the scene and discarded the firearm along a dirt road between vineyard rows on Buena Vista Boulevard; he was arrested on August 8, 2023, and during questioning admitted to firing the shots but said he did not intend to kill, claiming he looked away as he fired.

A charge of murder and robbery was filed in connection with the shooting. Does anyone have information about the altercation outside El Descanso Bar or the events that followed that night?