On the night of August 6, 2023, a fight involving several people broke out inside the Applebee’s at 32400 Date Palm Drive in Cathedral City. During the altercation, 31-year-old Cathedral City resident Ernesto Lazcano Arroyo was shot. He was taken to a hospital and later died of his injuries.

Cathedral City Police detectives and the Riverside County Gang Impact Team identified two suspects: 33-year-old Willie R. Bustamante and 30-year-old Antonio Portillo, both from Cathedral City. Bustamante was arrested at his Dinah Shore Drive home and booked on murder charges; Portillo was also taken into custody and booked into the John J. Benoit Detention Center. At trial, jurors heard that both men were dining separately with their wives and that a brief, initially friendly interaction between Arroyo and Bustamante escalated into a physical fight and then the shooting. A Riverside jury acquitted Bustamante of second-degree murder and related enhancements but convicted him of voluntary manslaughter; he was remanded pending sentencing scheduled for December 13, 2024.

Did anyone who was at the restaurant that night see how the confrontation started or what happened during the fight?