HOUSTON – One man is dead and another is injured after a shooting outside a bar in southeast Houston.
According to authorities, the shooting happened just before 2 a.m. Monday outside the El Botanero bar on the Gulf Freeway near College Avenue.
Police said the two men had left the bar for the night and were inside a Jeep when they were approached by another man.
Shots rang out, and when officers arrived on the scene, they said they found the two men shot inside the Jeep.
The man in the driver's seat - identified by family members as 24-year-old Romero Rodriguez Rivera - was pronounced dead at the scene, police said. The other man was shot in the shoulder and was transported to Clear Lake Regional Medical Center, police said.
He underwent emergency surgery and is expected to survive, authorities said.
Investigators are still working to learn more details about what may have led up to the shooting.
"At this point, we don't know if it was a robbery or some type of altercation," said Lt. Larry Crowson with the Houston Police Department. "Our homicide investigators are on scene. There are a few witnesses in the parking lot, we are talking with them."
Detectives said it did not appear there had been an altercation prior to the shooting.
According to Rivera's brother-in-law, Ramiro Ruiz, Rivera was shot five times and died inside his Jeep.
Ruiz said Rivera was a good man with no enemies. He was a truck driver who frequented the El Botanero bar, Ruiz said.
Rivera leaves behind a wife and a 6-year-old daughter, and the family is shattered, according to Ruiz.
"(We're) heartbroken man," Ruiz said. "It's killing us. While we were sleeping they just - last minute they called and say, 'Hey, your brother-in-law is dead.' It's hard for us. It's real hard. He leaves a little girl behind and it's hard for her right now. The only thing we are telling her right now is he went to a better place. That's all we can tell her right now."
Anyone with information is asked to contact Crime Stoppers at 713-222-TIPS.