A beer bottle flew into his truck and he fired into a crowd. A 16-year-old is dead
A 20-year-old man accused in the fatal shooting of a teenager told investigators he fired after an angry crowd approached and someone threw a beer bottle into his pickup, according to a court document.
Santiago Aguilar Avila was arrested Saturday, hours after 16-year-old Nathan Rubio was fatally shot in the back.
Investigators identified Avila as a suspect through a license plate number provided by a witness, according to an arrest warrant affidavit.
Avila told homicide detectives Jerry Cedillo and E. Pate that he was driving south on North Beach Street at East First Street when he heard several people yelling and cursing at him.
Avila stopped at a red light, waiting behind another vehicle to make a turn, Cedillo said.
“He observed one of the males approach his vehicle and throw a beer bottle into this vehicle as several others were approaching,” Cedillo wrote in the affidavit.
Avila told detectives he pointed his .45-caliber semi-automatic toward the crowd and fired. He said one of the males in the crowd fell, the affidavit states.
Cedillo said witnesses confirmed that Rubio threw the beer bottle through the open driver’s side window of Avila’s purple and white Chevrolet. The bottle landed inside the cab, Cedillo said.
Cedillo said it remains unknown why Rubio and the group were cursing and yelling at Avila. He said investigators have uncovered no information indicating that the group and Avila knew each other, though they all lived in the same neighborhood.
Rubio was found wounded in the street by family members.
His aunt has told the Star-Telegram that her nephew squeezed her hand and tried to get up after he was shot. He was taken away by ambulance before his mother could arrive and was pronounced dead shortly thereafter at John Peter Smith Hospital.
Avila remained held in the Tarrant County Jail on Monday with bail set at $100,000.
This report includes information from Star-Telegram archives.
Deanna Boyd: 817-390-7655, @deannaboyd
This story was originally published June 4, 2018 at 2:16 PM with the headline "A beer bottle flew into his truck and he fired into a crowd. A 16-year-old is dead."