Nicholas Bolanos, 33, a Hispanic/Latino male, was shot on the evening of June 12, 2025, after a six-round ShotSpotter alert drew officers to the area around Griffith Way and Hughes/Blackstone in central Fresno. Responding officers found him hunched over and bleeding from the chest; he was rushed to Community Regional Medical Center, where he was later pronounced dead.
Homicide detectives canvassed the scene and interviewed witnesses, identifying 41-year-old Scott Alvarado as the suspected shooter. Investigators learned the men knew each other and had been staying at the same residence; a verbal dispute escalated into gunfire. The following day, June 13, plainclothes detectives located Alvarado in the North Fork area of Madera County and arrested him without incident.
In the days that followed, Bolanos’s mother recounted that her son had been trying to help the man now accused of killing him, and that she witnessed the shooting unfold inside their central Fresno home. Her account added a stark, personal dimension to the case that had already shaken the neighborhood.
