Federal Officer Charged With Murder, Attempted Murder In Modesto Bar Shooting
MODESTO (CBS13) – A federal police officer for the U.S. Department of Defense has been arrested for shooting two people outside of a Modesto bar in July. One of the victims, a friend, later died.
The man who died was a friend of the shooters, and was also a federal officer.
Robert Anthony Moreno, a 30-year-old resident of Hollister, was arrested Friday by Modesto police homicide investigators on one count of murder and one count of attempted murder. He was brought back to Modesto and booked into the Stanislaus County Main Jail.
Police say the incident began as a bar fight that spilled into a Modesto strip mall parking lot.
The off-duty federal officer told police he was acting in self-defense.
"When all this went down it was just total chaos," said O'Malley's bar owner John Boyatt.
Boyatt described to CBS13 what went down just before closing.
"A man came up to our door, up to my bouncer and identified himself as an off-duty officer. He had an emptied gun and a badge and told him he'd just shot three people at the end of the driveway," said Boyatt.
Daryl Chargualaf, 34, also a federal officer, was shot to death. He reportedly went to the bar with the shooter and appears to have been accidentally shot by his Moreno during the fight with the other individual.
Moreno worked for the U.S. Department of Defense's Defense Logistics Agency in Tracy, where Chargualaf was also an officer.
The second victim was taken to the hospital to be treated, and was later released.
"We are not treating this as an officer-involved shooting incident," said Modesto Police Department spokesman Lt. Rick Armendariz in July. "We are treating it as a shooting and it just happens to involve an off-duty federal officer."
Chargualaf's Facebook page says he served in the Air Force and had studied criminal justice at Solano Community College after graduating from Vanden High School in Fairfield.
