{"id":458283,"date":"2026-10-06T19:40:08","date_gmt":"2026-10-06T19:40:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/458283\/"},"modified":"2026-10-06T19:40:08","modified_gmt":"2026-10-06T19:40:08","slug":"eric-vasquez-faces-second-trial-in-san-antonio-shooting","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/458283\/","title":{"rendered":"Eric Vasquez faces second trial in San Antonio shooting"},"content":{"rendered":"

A man accused of fatally shooting a father of two<\/a> during a road rage incident on the Northwest Side will face another trial after jurors failed to reach a verdict.<\/p>\n

Eric\u00a0Vasquez, 48, is charged with murder in the death of Jay Whitemountain Morales, 41, who died Jan. 21, 2025.<\/p>\n

Prosecutors said\u00a0Vasquez killed Morales in the 6700 block of Spring Hurst Drive while Morales was driving home after picking up medicine for his child. The two men did not know each other, according to San Antonio police.<\/p>\n

Vasquez\u2019s first trial ended in a mistrial in May after jurors deliberated for more than six hours without reaching a verdict. Opening statements in his second trial began Tuesday in the 437th District Court, with state District Judge Joel Perez presiding.<\/p>\n

Prosecutors said\u00a0Vasquez angrily chased Morales in his vehicle. They said Morales pulled over at a bus stop to keep Vasquez from following him home. After both men got out of their vehicles, prosecutors said, Vasquez shot Morales as he begged for his life.<\/p>\n

Vasquez\u2019s attorney, Michael De Leon, said his client shot Morales in self-defense. De Leon said Morales opened his car\u2019s trunk after pulling over at the bus stop and retrieved one of his two handguns.<\/p>\n

De Leon said Morales pointed a gun at\u00a0Vasquez, prompting him to fire.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis is a self-defense case; it was immediate and it was necessary,\u201d De Leon said during opening statements. \u201c(Vasquez) had no choice at that point but to act.\u201d<\/p>\n

De Leon said\u00a0Vasquez cooperated with police when they arrived at the scene. Vasquez was allowed to return home but was arrested months later.<\/p>\n

Andrew Elijah Torres, a driver who witnessed the shooting, testified about what he saw before Morales was shot. Torres said he could not say definitively whether Morales was holding a gun before the shooting.<\/p>\n

\u201cI saw the two gentlemen speaking with their hands and then all of a sudden I saw the person that got shot go around the vehicle and then I saw three shots occur,\u201d Torres said. \u201cI then looked around, like is this really happening?\u201d<\/p>\n

Jurors also heard from Lorraine\u00a0Campos, who lived nearby and witnessed the aftermath of the shooting. Campos said she was driving to buy milk when she saw two men at the bus stop.<\/p>\n

\u201cI saw a man holding a gun and another man on the ground that was screaming,\u201d\u00a0Campos said. \u201cThen the man holding the gun said, \u2018Why did you do that? Why did you f-word do that?\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n

If convicted,\u00a0Vasquez could face up to life in prison.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A man accused of fatally shooting a father of two during a road rage incident on the Northwest…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":458284,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[82,84,83],"class_list":["post-458283","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-san-antonio","tag-san-antonio","tag-san-antonio-headlines","tag-san-antonio-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/458283","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=458283"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/458283\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/458284"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=458283"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=458283"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=458283"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}