No murder charge for shooting that killed San Jose woman in bar

A man who shot back at a fellow patron in a bar near Watsonville is not expected to face charges for the killing of his assailant and of a San Jose woman who was working there, Monterey County prosecutors said.

District Attorney Jeannine M. Pacioni issued a release Tuesday saying that the case was considered self-defense and that the shooter — a 47-year-old Watsonville man — would be arraigned on a felony charge of carrying a loaded firearm in public.

However, she said her office’s investigation of the shooting was ongoing.

The shootout took place around 1 a.m. Nov. 21 at El Torero, a restaurant and bar on Salinas Road in the community of Pajaro.

Gerardo Hernandez Herrera, 36, reportedly was armed when he entered the bar and confronted the Watsonville man. Hernandez Herrera allegedly opened fire first, and the other patron drew a firearm and returned fire — an exchange reportedly lasting 3½ seconds.

Hernandez Herrera was fatally wounded, as was a bar employee identified by the Monterey County sheriff’s office as Jenny Carolina Martinez Bejarano, 36, of San Jose. Three other people were struck; their injuries were not life-threatening, the district attorney’s office said.

The surviving shooter turned himself in the following day to Watsonville police.

Under state law, when a person fires justifiably in self-defense and inadvertently injures or kills an innocent bystander, it is considered self-defense and not a criminal act, according to Pacioni’s release. Instead, the person who initiated the gunfire is responsible for all injuries or deaths that result.