A 22-year-old man was arrested in El Paso for his part in a shooting that left a soldier dead and another injured, local police said.
The incident took place last Sunday morning, when police heard gunshots in the area of a bar. They spotted two victims on the grounds and a white van passing them. Officers tried to stop the van but the driver fled the scene.
The victims in question are Manuel Rafael Rivera-Pohl, 24, and an unnamed 24-year-old. Two other people were seemingly targeted but ended up unharmed, KTSM reported. Rivera, an AH-64D Apache helicopter crew chief, died, while the other injured victim has already been released from the hospital.
Officers obtained an arrest warrant for Kwesi Nataniel Bacchus over the week. He was arrested and booked into the El Paso County Detention Facility and charged with murder. His bond has been set in $1 million. His photo is not yet available due to the ongoing investigation.
Court documents obtained by the outlet show that Bacchus and one of the victims got into a confrontation after the former was accused of "breaking the rules" by hanging out of the passenger window of a car doing "burnouts."
The criticism led to a minutes-long argument but Bacchus continued what he was doing. The four victims then went into a bar but Bacchus told them to step outside, something they didn't do to avoid confrontation, the documents showed. They left about 45 minutes latter but the white van in question drove up to them and began firing.
According to a co-defendant of Bacchus, he was upset about "some guys that pulled a gun on him." He sought retaliation for that, he said. He confirmed that Bacchus was the person who shot the gun and that he fled the scene because he was scared.
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