Joey Salinas, 30, a male from Fort Worth, returned to his room around daybreak on Sunday, August 3, 2025, after buying groceries for his girlfriend. At about 6 a.m., at a property in the 2900 block of North Main Street, a knock sounded at the door. A witness opened it. Salinas came forward, exchanged a few words with the visitor, then closed the door. Moments later, the visitor walked back to a vehicle, took a handgun, returned, and fired multiple rounds through the door.
Salinas was struck and fatally wounded; the medical examiner later recorded that he died from a gunshot wound to the back. First responders pronounced him dead at the scene.
Police identified the location as 2911 North Main Street—known publicly as the Buena Vista Motel—where officers had been dispatched just before 6 a.m. to reports of a shooting. The address and business listing align with the site where officers found the 30-year-old man inside his room suffering from at least one gunshot wound to the torso.
Detectives quickly focused on a young suspect who had arrived with several companions. After the shooting, the group was spotted at a nearby business; officers moved in. Eighteen-year-old Ariel Herrera was arrested and later booked into jail on a murder charge. Three other men who were with Herrera were detained on outstanding warrants. Authorities also noted that the victim—identified as Joey Salinas, 30—had just come back with groceries when the confrontation unfolded.
News and memorial records fixed the date and place of the killing: August 3, 2025, in Fort Worth, Texas. Those same accounts state that the 30-year-old man was shot through his door and died at the scene, while officers canvassed the area for witnesses and security footage.
In the days that followed, authorities publicly named the 30-year-old victim as Joey Salinas and the 18-year-old suspect as Ariel Herrera, reiterating the sequence at the door: a brief exchange, a closed door, a return with a gun, and shots fired through the barrier. As of those reports, Herrera faced a murder charge connected to the killing of Joey Salinas, 30, and investigators had detained additional individuals on warrants as they worked to map the full path that led to the door and the gunfire behind it.
