Men sentenced for AR-15 shooting at crowded Pasco nightclub

Two men have been sentenced for shooting into a crowded Pasco nightclub with an AR-15.

Last month a Franklin County jury found Eduardo Miranda-Salazar guilty of two counts of first-degree assault with firearm enhancements and one count of unlawful possession of a firearm for his role in the May 2024 La Cantina shooting.

Jesus Martinez-Lopez was acquitted of attempted murder, but found guilty of seven counts of first-degree assault with firearm enhancements and unlawful display of a weapon, a gross misdemeanor.

On Wednesday, Superior Court Judge David Petersen sentenced the men to decades behind bars.

Martinez-Lopez was sentenced to 62 years, with a mandatory minimum of 35 years.

Miranda-Salazar was sentenced to 34 1/2 years in prison, with a mandatory minimum of 10 years.

The mandatory minimum time they must serve is equal to five years for each of the assault charges they were convicted of.

Petersen also entered 99-year no-contact orders for the victims, as well as 18 months of community custody and restitution to be determined at a later date.

The sentencing came after an 11-day trial in October that ended with guilty verdicts after 6 1/2 hours of jury deliberation.

The prosecution team was led by Chief Criminal Deputy Prosecuting Attorneys Maureen Astley and Julie Long.

“I would like to thank my Chief Deputies for the way this case was prosecuted and the work of Lead Detective (Julie) Lee and Pasco Police Department for their work on this case,” Franklin County Prosecutor Shawn Sant said in a statement. “Armed crime will get you long time in Franklin County.”

La Cantina club shooting

In May 2024, the men fired dozens of rounds, including from an AR-15, into a crowded bar. One man suffered 10 gunshot wounds and another was also injured.

Prosecutors argued the men were causing problems by harassing staff and making other customers feel uncomfortable that night.

At some point, Miranda-Salazar told a security guard he was going to “come back and f--k everything up,” prosecutors said.

A half-hour before the shooting, Miranda-Salazar was seen on the club’s security video moving his car. That’s when investigators say he likely grabbed his handgun and returned to the club.

After he was told to leave, Miranda-Salazar tossed his keys to Martinez Lopez, who went to the car and came back with an AR-15.

“He is concealing that rifle behind his back after he gets it. He is not carrying it on his head. He’s not slinging it over his shoulder to get his mail. He’s not showing it to the group. It’s not show and tell. It’s not, ‘Hey, you want to buy this rifle,’” Deputy Prosecutor Maureen Astley said during her closing arguments. “He’s concealing it because of his negative intentions.”

One of the club’s security team members testified he told another security employee to call 911 because he believed the men were going to kill everyone inside.

Miranda-Salazar and Martinez Lopez were still outside when a third man, Cesar Ponce-Gutierrez, came out of the bar, saw the gun and was worried what was about to happen. He retrieved his own gun from his car and approached them.

A video taken through the front window caught what happened next. Miranda-Salazar pulled out his gun and held it to the back of Ponce-Gutierrez’s head.

“He felt a firearm pressed against the back of his head and he had to make a split-second decision,” Astley told jurors. “In doing so, he fired his weapon at around the same time as Mr. Miranda-Salazar.”

As Ponce-Gutierrez retreated into the bar, Martinez Lopez fired through the window. Several of the shots hit Ponce-Gutierrez in the arms, legs and stomach. He collapsed on the floor near his friends.

Miranda-Salazar and Martinez Lopez fled but were later arrested.

While Ponce-Gutierrez survived, he could have died if it wasn’t for a fast response from one of his friends and others, Astley told jurors. Though he lived, the shooting left him with injuries that make it hard for him to hold a job even a year later, she said.

Another man, Pablo Hernandez, also was hit in the arm and stomach.

Self-defense

Defense attorneys Dennis Hanson and Peyman Younesi had argued Ponce-Gutierrez stepped in and threatened the men.

The attorneys painted Ponce-Gutierrez, who had a blood-alcohol level of 0.19% and had cocaine and fentanyl in his system, as the person who turned what was a calm situation into a fracas. They said Ponce-Gutierrez was the first to point his gun at anyone.

“Put yourself in (Martinez Lopez’s) shoes on May 18, 2024, when Cesar approaches him with a pistol drawn, shoots Eduardo, fires seven times. What is a reasonable response?” Hanson asked the jurors.

Ultimately the jury rejected the argument that Martinez-Lopez and Miranda-Salazar had acted in self-defense.