The suspect in the weekend murder has a long criminal history, including previous murder charges

SAN ANTONIO – A man arrested in connection with a fatal shooting outside a North Side restaurant early Saturday morning has a lengthy criminal history, including a prior felony arrest.

Franco Summers, 32, had arrested by San Antonio police Sunday afternoon in relation to the incident which took place just after midnight on the same day.

Police said he shot and killed 43-year-old Christopher Fuentes in a parking lot near Taco Palenque, located near Blanco Road and Loop 1604.

Fuentes was the father of Summers’ girlfriend, police said.

A preliminary SAPD report said the two men got into an argument outside a nearby bar.

After Fuentes and his daughter left that location, Summers walked up to them in the restaurant parking lot and exchanged words with the father, the report states.

At some point, Summers fired shots from inside his vehicle, striking and killing Fuentes, police said.

“It’s hitting us pretty hard that he’s gone,” a relative of Fuentes told KSAT 12 News Monday morning. “We will never be the same.”

The relative wanted to withhold his identity out of fear that Summers, who remains in prison, might retaliate somehow.

Police identified Summers as a suspect with the help of witnesses, then found him at an apartment complex several miles from the crime scene.

“Now that he’s locked up, I still don’t feel 100 percent safe because there’s a possibility that he’ll be out on bail,” Fuentes’ relative said.

Her fear is based, at least in part, on Summers’ prior history with the law.

Court records show that despite numerous arrests, Summers spent relatively little time behind bars.

KSAT 12 News covered a January 2013 fatal shooting in which he was named a suspect.

Summers, 21, told police he shot and killed Roger Rodriguez, Jr., 17, in self-defense.

The the charge against him in that case was dismissed several months after his arrest, pending further investigation.

In 2019, police also named Summers as the man they arrested after a standoff in Stone Oak.

Police said he was holding a woman and a child hostage in an apartment there.

Summers later served two years in prison in connection with that case.

Other charges filed against him over the years have been settled with deferred adjudication, court records show.

After this latest murder arrest, however, the family of the victim, Christopher Fuentes, hopes that things will end differently and that Summers will never see freedom again.

“We just want justice,” the relative said. “If it was my choice, he would get the death penalty. But I want life without parole. I don’t think they should be out on the streets.”