Taco truck shooting leads to conviction. 38-year term
A cellphone video captured by a bystander led to a murder conviction in the fatal shooting of a man at a North Austin taco truck in 2016.
The three-day trial of Osiel Benitez Benitez, 44, wrapped up Wednesday in Travis County state District Court after lawyers for both sides presented competing interpretations of a video recorded just steps from where the shooting occurred. The victim had knocked Benitez Benitez down and kicked him in the face.
State District Judge Brad Urrutia sided with prosecutors, who had represented in closing arguments that Benitez Benitez was “humiliated” and “brought a gun to a fistfight.”
“You had time to reflect on it,” Urrutia told Benitez Benitez. “You had time to walk away.”
Urrutia sentenced Benitez Benitez to 38 years in prison.
The existence of the video did not come to light until two weeks ago, when prosecutors were preparing for trial and met with a witness who revealed he had recorded the early morning May 2016 incident. The video began with Benitez Benitez flat on the ground, knocked down from a
punch by Rigoberto Jose Castillo. Castillo then kicked Benitez Benitez in the face, leaving him bloodied.
Multiple witnesses said the fight began when Castillo took offense to a friend of Benitez Benitez cutting in line and trying to place an order. Benitez Benitez threw the first punch, Castillo’s wife testified.
The video continued with Benitez Benitez leaving the scene and returning with a .38-caliber handgun aimed at Castillo. All nine rounds he fired struck Castillo, including in the back as he fled to the parking lot.
Some of the rounds exited through Castillo and pierced innocent bystanders, leaving three people injured in the attack.
Those injuries were the basis of three additional guilty counts against Benitez Benitez for aggravated assault with a deadly weapon. He was found not guilty of a felony retaliation charge related to an allegation that he got out of his truck and tried to shoot a witness who had followed Benitez Benitez to jot down his license plate number. That witness did not show up to testify.
A surveillance video — taken from a nearby restaurant — showed Benitez Benitez stumbling to his truck to get the gun.
The defense waived the right to a jury, giving Urrutia authority from the bench as the sole fact-finder in the case. Urrutia called the kick Benitez Benitez took to the face “unfair,” but said it did not justify the use of deadly force. Benitez Benitez should have called 911 or left, Urrutia said.
In closing arguments, defense lawyer Darla Davis said Benitez Benitez’s behavior was out of character and that the kick to the head left him in an altered state.
“You don’t kick a man when he’s down,” she said.
That comment inspired a snappy retort from prosecutor Chari Kelly: “You don’t shoot a man in the back.”
Family members said that Castillo, 39, was a whiz who learned English just three months after he moved to the United States from Mexico at 13.
He devoured the news and had hoped to go to college to further his opportunities in his job as a land surveyor. He left behind a teenage son who went on to attend college.
From the witness stand, Castillo’s widow testified that she could no longer afford the house they shared and had to put it up for sale.
“But it was not my home anymore,” she said through tears. “It was a shell.”