Pasadena Man Charged With Baseball Bat Beating Death

A Pasadena man accused of using a baseball bat to fatally beat a man outside a Target store in Azusa was charged Friday with capital murder.

Manuel Banuelos — also known as Rafael Banuelos — is set to be arraigned July 16 at the Pomona courthouse. The murder charge includes the special circumstance allegation of murder while lying in wait, along with an allegation that Banuelos used a bat as a deadly and dangerous weapon.

Prosecutors will decide later whether to seek the death penalty against the 23-year-old defendant.

Police have not released the name of the victim, an Anaheim resident who was in his 30s, or a motive for the attack.

Officers were sent to the 800 block of North Azusa Avenue, between West Ninth Street and West Foothill Boulevard, about 2:15 p.m. Wednesday on a report of a man being beaten with a baseball bat, according to Azusa police Lt. Robert Chivas.

Witnesses told officers the suspect was holding a bat as he waited for the victim at the bottom of a staircase that leads to the Target store. The entire incident was reportedly captured on video.

The victim was unresponsive and bleeding from his head when officers got to the scene, Chivas said. He died at a hospital.

Banuelos was quickly apprehended at the Metro Gold Line station across the street, which is near the Azusa Police Department headquarters. He has been held without bail since then, according to jail records.

The homicide was the first in Azusa since the fatal pre-dawn shooting of a 22-year-old man on Christmas Day, the last of the city’s five homicides in 2019, Chivas told City News Service.