Christopher Albert Rizo Sr., a 44-year-old man from Houston, was killed on the night of August 15, 2020, after an argument involving two groups moved from one Houston-area bar to another and erupted into gunfire. Investigators said the trouble began at a bar roughly 12 miles from the eventual shooting scene, where Rizo and friends became involved in a confrontation with a motorcycle group. Police accounts identified that group as the Bandidos.
Both groups were reportedly removed from the first establishment because of the dispute, but instead of separating, they later converged at El Mercado Rodriguez, a nightclub or dance hall on Fulton Street in north Houston. The confrontation resumed there, eventually spilling outside.
At about 9:35 p.m., the dispute outside the Fulton Street establishment turned into an exchange of gunfire. Houston police officers dispatched to 2836 Fulton Street found Rizo lying on the sidewalk suffering from multiple gunshot wounds. Paramedics attempted to help him, but he was pronounced dead at the scene. Police recovered two firearms from the area, while investigators and reporters noted numerous spent cartridge casings near the scene, including along the nearby Metro rail line. Authorities believed at least one other person had been wounded during the shooting. That injured person left before police arrived, was taken to a hospital in a private vehicle and was later airlifted to Memorial Hermann, where police said the person was in stable condition. Investigators also received information suggesting there might have been a third shooting victim, but they were unable to locate or confirm that person at the time.
In the immediate aftermath, Houston homicide detectives focused on determining who among the people involved had fired the shots that killed Rizo. Police released surveillance photographs of three individuals they believed had been involved in the incident or had direct knowledge of what happened. Officials initially appealed to the public for help identifying them, stressing that the individuals could provide information about the sequence of events and who was responsible for the fatal gunfire. By August 17, police said tips from the public had allowed investigators to identify the persons of interest. Their names, however, were not released in the reports, and police did not publicly identify any of the three as Rizo's killer. The distinction was significant: they were being sought for questioning because investigators believed they knew what had happened, rather than being publicly announced at that stage as defendants charged with the homicide.
Police described the shooting as potentially gang-related because of the reported involvement of the Bandidos motorcycle group and the way the confrontation carried over between establishments. The available accounts depict the killing as the culmination of an ongoing dispute rather than a sudden, isolated attack: an argument began at one bar, both groups were expelled, the same parties later encountered each other at the Fulton Street location, the confrontation continued outside, and weapons were fired by people in the competing groups. Investigators were therefore faced with sorting through a scene involving multiple armed participants, multiple weapons and at least two people struck by gunfire, while determining which shots were responsible for Rizo's death.
The publicly available reporting located on the case does not document an arrest or murder charge specifically for Rizo's killing, nor does it identify a particular shooter by name. Although police confirmed that the three photographed persons of interest were eventually identified, the reports reviewed do not describe any subsequent prosecution, trial or conviction connected specifically to his death. The last substantive public update in the contemporaneous coverage continued to describe the matter as an active homicide investigation, with detectives seeking information from witnesses and others who knew what occurred during the confrontation. Rizo's obituary states that he was born in Houston on February 13, 1976, and was survived by his wife of 20 years, his children, grandchildren, mother, siblings and numerous other relatives and friends. His funeral was held on August 29, followed by interment at Forest Park Lawndale Cemetery.
