On the evening of December 20, 2020, Jose Roberto Martinez Rascon, a 28-year-old Hispanic/Latino male, was shot during a deadly attack on Tucson’s south side near the intersection of East Mossman Road and South Jeanette Boulevard. Police were dispatched just before 6:30 p.m. after multiple 911 calls reported gunfire in the area. When officers arrived, they found two men lying near the roadway suffering from obvious gunshot wounds.
Emergency responders from Tucson Fire provided medical aid at the scene and rushed both victims to Banner University Medical Center with life-threatening injuries. Despite these efforts, Jose succumbed to his wounds shortly after reaching the hospital, while the second victim survived and was reported to be recovering from his injuries.
In the days that followed, detectives from the Tucson Police Department’s Violent Crimes Unit took over the investigation, interviewing witnesses and processing the scene for evidence. Investigators learned that shortly before the shooting, Jose had been involved in a verbal confrontation with the occupants of a vehicle; that exchange was reported to have taken place in Spanish. After the confrontation, a white four-door SUV was seen leaving the area, and detectives believe the individuals in that vehicle were connected to the shooting. The location itself is a mixed residential and commercial corridor on Tucson’s south side, and officers canvassed the neighborhood in an effort to identify additional witnesses, gather surveillance footage, and reconstruct the sequence of events that led to the gunfire which left Jose dead and another man badly wounded.
Authorities quickly emphasized that the shooter or shooters were still at large. At the time of the first public statements, police confirmed that there were no suspects in custody and asked anyone with information to contact the Pima County Attorney’s anonymous tip line at 88-CRIME. Local news outlets and subsequent case summaries reiterated that officers were searching for a suspect connected to the white SUV and that investigators continued to seek community assistance. As of the most recent online updates, public records and case listings still do not report any arrest or identification of a suspect in connection with Jose’s killing, and the homicide remains publicly described as an open, unsolved case, with authorities and victim-advocacy sites continuing to encourage anyone with information to come forward.
