Man gets 40 to life for deadly shooting outside Lamont bar
BAKERSFIELD, Calif. (KGET) — When a fight he helped provoke at a Lamont bar didn’t go in his friend’s favor, Jose Gomez-Rivera didn’t step in and separate the men.
He chose instead to pull a gun and fire at point blank range, killing Rosalino Soto Juarez. Then he fled with his friend.
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Noting Gomez-Rivera “summarily executed” Juarez, Judge John Oglesby on Tuesday sentenced him to 40 years to life in prison. Gomez-Rivera showed no reaction.
A jury in April found Gomez-Rivera, 39, guilty of murder. Surveillance footage captured the June 30, 2023 shooting that occurred just before midnight outside El Descanso Bar on Weedpatch Highway.
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Arrested more than a month after the shooting, Gomez-Rivera told sheriff’s detectives he waited for the combatants to separate then fired twice from 6 feet away.
He said he closed his eyes when he pulled the trigger, according to court documents, and he didn’t mean to kill anyone. He told detectives he threw the gun between rows of vineyards on Buena Vista Boulevard.
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