On the evening of March 22, 2020, Jesse Dominguez, a 27-year-old Hispanic / Latino male, was seated in his vehicle at the Magic Wand Car Wash in the 3000 block of East Fort Lowell Road in midtown Tucson when he was shot multiple times. According to police, he was parked in the lot when a white vehicle pulled up alongside his car. A man associated with that vehicle moved to the passenger side, and moments later shots were fired toward Dominguez.
Early investigative summaries stated that a passenger in the white car opened fire, while later descriptions based on surveillance footage indicated that Dominguez and Juan M. Mercado were seen talking at the car wash immediately before a shootout erupted between them.
Officers from the Tucson Police Department responded to reports of gunfire at the Magic Wand Car Wash and found Dominguez gravely wounded in his vehicle. He had been struck by gunfire and was pronounced dead at the scene. Law-enforcement and obituary records describe the fatal shooting and his death as occurring on March 22, 2020, while online memorial and homicide-tracking sites list his date of death as March 23, 2020, reflecting the way different public records captured the timing of the incident and its aftermath. The attack took place in the open parking area of the self-service car wash, and the white vehicle seen at the scene sped away after the exchange of gunfire; police later located that vehicle abandoned.
Detectives opened a homicide investigation focusing on the occupants of the white car. Investigators reported that the man tied to that vehicle approached the passenger side before the passenger allegedly produced a gun and fired repeatedly at Dominguez, while Dominguez also returned fire as the car fled. Over the following weeks, homicide detectives, specialized units, and federal partners worked to identify the suspect involved. On April 6, 2020, officers, SWAT personnel, K9 units, and members of the U.S. Marshals Service located 20-year-old Juan Mercado on Tucson’s east side, took him into custody, and booked him into the Pima County Jail on a charge of first-degree murder in connection with Dominguez’s killing. At that time, public statements emphasized Mercado’s role in the confrontation and his association with the white vehicle, while also noting that a passenger in that car had been described as the person who initially opened fire; no additional suspects were publicly named in the early coverage.
The case continued through the courts over the next two years. In late 2021, Mercado entered a guilty plea to second-degree murder for the fatal shooting of Dominguez, acknowledging his role in the gunfight at the car wash. He also pleaded guilty to two counts of armed robbery stemming from separate incidents that occurred roughly two weeks before the homicide. At sentencing on February 11, 2022, a Pima County judge imposed an 18-year prison term for the murder along with two 12-year terms for the armed robberies; the court ordered that all three sentences run concurrently, giving Mercado, who was then 27, an effective prison term of about 16 more years after credit for nearly two years of time already served in custody. Public homicide databases now classify the Dominguez case as solved, reflecting Mercado’s arrest, conviction, and lengthy sentence, while online memorials continue to mark Dominguez as “lost to gun violence” in Tucson and host dozens of virtual candles and tributes in his memory.
