A grand jury indicts Temple man in deadly shooting outside Crickets Drafthouse in Waco

WACO, Texas (KWTX) – A Temple man was charged Thursday in Waco's first murder case of 2024, the Feb. 23 shooting of a man visiting Waco for a medical conference.

A McLennan County grand jury has indicted Bralon Buhl, 25, on murder charges in the death of 41-year-old Gilberto Moralez, who was shot and killed during an altercation outside Crickets Drafthouse in the 200 block of Mary Avenue.

Buhl was also charged with a third-degree felony charge of deadly conduct, alleging he discharged a firearm in the direction of others that night.

According to arrest documents, Moralez was at Crickets with three other coworkers when someone pulled a female coworker's hair. She turned around and saw four men behind her. Moralez confronted the man who pulled her hair, leading to an altercation in the bar, an arrest affidavit alleges.

Moralez and his group decided to leave the bar, but were followed by the four men to the parking lot, police said.

Moralez and the men got into a physical confrontation in the parking lot, and after the fight, Moralez's group walked away toward the Hilton Hotel on University Parks Drive, the affidavit said.

One of the women with Moralez reported hearing a loud noise that sounded like fireworks and realized Moralez had been injured by gunfire. The group attempted life-saving measures until paramedics arrived on the scene. Moralez died at the scene shortly after officers arrived, police said.

Officers investigating the shooting discovered that police had previously been dispatched to Austins on the Ave at 719 Austin Avenue at approximately 12:40 p.m. for a separate shooting case involving two groups of men who arrived in two separate vehicles and attempted to enter the bar.

According to police, three men arrived in a dark red sedan and four others arrived in a light-colored sedan.

After being denied entry because they were drunk and belligerent, some men verbally confronted the bar employee, the police wrote in the arrest warrant.

The employee told officers that one of the men made the comment: I have something for you. He then pushed the metal support down as he walked away. Police further wrote: The employee described him as a black male wearing acid-washed jeans with white frayed stitching and a black shirt.

The Austins on the Ave employee then heard several gunshots coming from the area where a light-colored sedan was parked, but could not see who was shooting, police said. Officers reported finding three 9mm cartridge casings.

Crime scene investigators reviewed security video from The Warehouse at 727 Austin Avenue, which shows images of the men allegedly involved in the Austins on the Ave shooting investigation.

The footage shows that three men arrived and stood outside The Warehouse at around 12.29pm. A minute later, a light-colored sedan parked and four men joined the other three as they walked toward Austins on Ave.

The descriptions of the individuals and their clothing given to officers by the bartender at Austins on the Ave matched the individuals seen on the surveillance video.

Maries Wine Bar at 723 Austin Ave. had security video footage that captured the sidewalk in color, police said. This camera's vantage point captured all seven individuals, and also captured a black man in the dark shirt, acid-washed jeans with white frayed stitching pulling down the metal upright at Austins on the Ave.

Video footage was then obtained from Scinary Cybersecurity at 215 S 2nd St. The camera was in black and white and covered most of the parking lot where Moralez was killed, police said.

In those images, the suspects in the light-colored sedan are said to have arrived at the Crickets parking lot around 12:40 p.m. Four people left the light-colored sedan and walked towards Crickets while the three people who had been in the dark red sedan joined them. them, police said.

At approximately 1:05 a.m., Moralez and his colleagues are seen leaving Crickets and walking through the parking lot.

The suspect, who was described as a black male wearing a dark shirt and acid-washed jeans, approached (Moralez) and a physical altercation ensued, police wrote. When the physical altercation ended, a black male wearing a black jacket with light-colored lining in the hood came and raised his right arm in the air as others in the parking lot ran. It looked like he had fired a gun into the air.

Police said the man in the acid wash jeans with white frayed stitching and the dark shirt entered the light-colored sedan and came out with his right arm extended toward Moralez. The suspect held his arm out as he stood behind a parked vehicle and appeared to fire a round from a handgun, police said.

Moralez fell to the ground as the others crossed the street toward the Hilton. The suspect then maneuvered around the parked vehicle with his arm continuously extended and assumed a shooting stance, with both arms pointed toward the victim's colleagues, police said.

In the video, it appeared that (the shooter) fired a gun toward (Moralez's co-workers) multiple times, police said.

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