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Defense witness describes nightclub brawl, missing radio and knee strike in El Volcán trial
Summary
Mariano Rendon Jr., co‑owner and host at El Volcán, testified that he and staff intervened in an Aug. 20, 2023 brawl, that a security radio and baton went missing afterward and GPS‑pinged to Nixon, Texas, and that he put one knee on a man’s stomach to prevent access to a holstered weapon.
Mariano Rendon Jr., a co‑owner and on‑floor host at the El Volcán nightclub, testified under direct examination that during an altercation on Aug. 20, 2023 he and staff rushed to break up a crowd and that he put “one knee on his stomach” because the man’s hands were near a security guard’s holster.
Rendon told the jury the club regularly staffed multiple armed security officers and that his standard closing procedures include removing beer buckets and sweeping the dance floor. “That’s my biggest fear,” Rendon said when asked whether the presence of a weapon in the pile of people alarmed him. “I put one knee on his stomach. His his hands were touching the holster.”
On cross‑examination the prosecutor pressed Rendon about gaps in the footage and evidence the defense and the club supplied. Rendon acknowledged that a phone recording of surveillance footage and hazy hard‑wired video were the primary images the club provided to investigators, and he said the club’s internal radios — one of which was later found to be missing — were tracked by GPS and pinged first to a nearby tire shop and then to Nixon, Texas, in the early morning hours after the incident.
Rendon testified that a baton issued to security was also missing after the encounter and that he and staff later photographed injuries sustained by staff and by others. The witness identified defense exhibits showing scratches and abrasions on his back and neck and confirmed those photographs were taken the night of the incident. Defense exhibits 1, 2 and 3 and defense exhibits 9 and 10 (photographs) were admitted into evidence without objection.
Rendon described efforts to de‑escalate after the fight, including phone and text exchanges with Tina Jimenez, who, Rendon said, had family ties to patrons involved in the altercation. He told the jury some conversations and text exchanges were conciliatory at first but later shifted to requests for compensation, which he said he interpreted as settlement demands rather than purely cooperative efforts to resolve the incident.
The witness acknowledged the club’s internal camera system produced limited clarity on the dance floor because of lighting and strobe effects and said other cameras on registers and in back areas are aimed for theft prevention and not wide‑angle crowd monitoring. He also testified that some expected sources of evidence — such as body‑worn camera footage from security employees — were not produced to the court, either because officers did not have cameras or because the footage was not retained by the officers who controlled those devices.
On the record the defense rested its case; the state indicated it had no further witnesses to call at this phase, and the judge excused jurors for deliberation scheduling and ordered they return Monday for closing arguments. The testimony highlighted disputed evidence about who initiated or escalated the fight, the sufficiency of surveillance footage, and the chain of custody for club radios and security equipment.
