A father-of-two has died after he was shot during a confrontation in a car park outside a restaurant where he was celebrating his six-year-old daughter's birthday.
Calogero Dueñes, 24, was carrying his daughter's birthday cake and had just arrived at the Chuck E. Cheese family chain restaurant in Humble, Texas, when the driver of a car fatally shot him.
The car had driven down a parking lot aisle in the wrong direction and Mr Dueñes got into a verbal exchange with the driver before the shots were fired.
The victim's two daughters, 3-year-old Marrlow and 6-year-old birthday girl Serina, were already inside the restaurant with their mother at the moment of the tragedy.
Mr Dueñes, a landscaper, then stumbled into the restaurant where he collapsed, a relative told NBC News. "I feel so sorry for my nieces," his sister-in-law Rosemarie Uresti, 18, said.
"They have to grow up without a father now. He was a good father. He did everything for them."
Amber Uresti, the victim's wife and mother of his children, said she had "no idea" why he was killed.
She told KTRK: "I saw him walking towards us. I told the lady my husband was on his way. I pointed at him, and the instant I turned around, he came running in through the door and he kept saying, 'I got shot! I got shot!''
She said their six-year-old child saw her father fall to the ground. "He had no weapons," she continued. "He was holding my daughter's birthday cake. He had nothing on him. I don't understand why."
Police said the suspected shooter fled before they arrived.
He was rushed to hospital where he was pronounced dead a short time later.
His wife told KPRC: "My husband passed without me, without anybody to hold his hand, to comfort him. I want justice. I want justice for my children, for Calogero."
On a GoFundMe page for her Mr Dueñes, his sister-in-law wrote that her "entire family is devastated in this tragedy.
He left behind 2 baby girls, Serina Divine Duenes 6 yrs old & Mallory Elizabeth Duenes 3 yrs old, This is not how we expected to start the new year."
