Details Emerge From Far East El Paso Shooting

It all started with a fight in far east El Paso. It ended with one man dead and another now facing murder charges.

Police said 25–year-old Juan Angel Ramirez will be charged with the murder of 30–year-old Juan Carlos Castro. Ramirez was arrested at a nearby church where he fled following the shooting early Sunday, authorities indicated.

So how did it all happen? Apparently it all began when Ramirez punched his girlfriend in the face. This caused the girlfriend to get a hold of Castro, the father of her child. Neighbors say that the fight escalated and ended with Ramirez pulling a gun and shooting Castro in the street.

The whole thing went down at about 3am at the 12300 block of Paseo Alegre and Paseo Grande. When police arrived on the scene, Castro was suffering from serious injuries caused by the gun shot wound, and he eventually died later at the hospital.

Based on city data, recently El Paso has seen an increase in murders. Here are the numbers by year:

2006 - 13
2007 - 17
2008 - 17
2009 - 12
2010 - 5
2011 - 16
2012 - 23
2013 - 10
2014 - 21
2015 - 17
2016 - 17
2017 - 19
2018 - 23
2019 - 40

Before I moved to El Paso, I heard a lot about how safe the city was and low the crime rate was. However, based on this information, El Paso isn't as safe as you'd think. Violent crimes have been at a higher rate in El Paso compared to the rest of the country 10 of the last 11 years. The one crime rate El Paso performs well in is property crime. We are well under the national average in that category.