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According to Redwood City police, it was the only triple-homicide in the city’s history, and it started as a birthday celebration.
On April 15, 2006, a mass shooting at the Headquarters Bar at 895 Second Avenue ended with three dead and three seriously injured. The East Bay Times described a situation that got out of control: “The skirmish escalated from harsh words to fists and, finally, to guns….” The principal shooter was 26-year-old Rolando Fernandez, who was drunk and allegedly high on meth at the time of the melee.
The East Bay Times attempted to summarize a complex and confusing crime scene: “The clash began when one of the murder victims…exchanged words with someone in the bar and called a friend, who brought in between five and seven men to the bar… A fistfight quickly erupted, and one of the men who came to the bar to defend (one of the murdered men) pulled out a gun and began shooting. …Fernandez…witnessed the shooting of two of his friends. One of his friends was killed, and another friend was shot in the stomach… The violence prompted Fernandez to pull out his own gun and join the gun battle, and he eventually killed his two victims in self-defense (according to his later defense attorney).”
Fernandez then attempted to flee the bar in his car but crashed and was soon arrested.
He went to trial after the initial gunman made a deal with prosecutors to plead to voluntary manslaughter charges and received a 21-year sentence. Fernandez’s four-week trial ended in a guilty verdict, despite his lawyer declaring he acted in self-defense out of fear. His sentencing was delayed twice due to what his lawyer suspected was juror misconduct. The judge rejected this, and Fernandez was sent to San Quentin State Prison and will be eligible for parole for the first time in 2086.
