{"id":135012,"date":"2025-08-10T18:44:11","date_gmt":"2025-08-10T18:44:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/135012\/"},"modified":"2025-08-10T18:44:11","modified_gmt":"2025-08-10T18:44:11","slug":"new-york-man-killed-in-puerto-rico-while-visiting-island-for-bad-bunnys-residency-police-say","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/135012\/","title":{"rendered":"New York man killed in Puerto Rico while visiting island for Bad Bunny’s residency, police say"},"content":{"rendered":"

A tourist from New York was fatally shot early Sunday while visiting Puerto Rico to attend\u00a0Bad Bunny’s residency<\/a>, police said.<\/p>\n

The victim, identified as 25-year-old Kevin Mares, was killed at La Perla, a popular seaside shantytown near Old San Juan, police said in a statement.<\/p>\n

The shooting happened in the predawn hours at a nightspot called “Shelter for Mistreated Men.”<\/p>\n

Mares was shot on the left side of his abdomen and was taken to Puerto Rico’s largest public hospital, where he died, authorities said.<\/p>\n

Homicide detective Sgt. Arnaldo Ruiz told the Associated Press in a phone interview that the shooting took place when several people near Mares began arguing, and one pulled out a gun and shot at least three people. Two other men who live in La Perla were injured and remained hospitalized. <\/p>\n

“We’re still in the early stages of establishing a motive for the events. We can’t rule anything out until the interviews are completed,” Ruiz told local media, according to El Nuevo Dia<\/a>.<\/p>\n

The police sergeant said Mares was an innocent bystander who was visiting Puerto Rico with friends for one of Bad Bunny’s 30 concerts. The musician’s high-profile residency has attracted tens of thousands of visitors to the U.S. territory.<\/p>\n

Ruiz added that Mares’ three friends were also from New York. He didn’t have their hometowns.<\/p>\n

\"US-Tourist<\/p>\n

An aerial view of the seaside neighborhood of La Perla, in San Juan, Puerto Rico, is seen on Aug. 25, 2017.<\/p>\n

Ricardo Arduengo \/ AP<\/p>\n

La Perla is located on the outskirts of a historic district popular with tourists known as Old San Juan. A couple hundred people live in the shantytown, which once served as Puerto Rico’s biggest distribution point for heroin and was known for its violence.<\/p>\n

Police used to avoid the community, which used to have a sign proclaiming, “Not open to visitors. Do not enter.”<\/p>\n

But violence eased when hundreds of federal agents raided the slum in 2011 and arrested dozens of people, including a well-known community leader who was later convicted.<\/p>\n

The neighborhood\u00a0became even safer and more welcoming<\/a>\u00a0after Puerto Rican singers Luis Fonsi and Daddy Yankee featured it in their hit, “Despacito.”<\/p>\n

But isolated violent incidents persist.<\/p>\n

In February 2023,\u00a0three tourists were stabbed<\/a>\u00a0after police said a person told them to stop filming inside the community.<\/p>\n

Then, in April 2024, a 24-year-old tourist from Delaware was killed and his body set on fire after police said he and a friend were attacked following a drug purchase. Police said the victims were trying to take pictures of La Perla after being warned not to do so.<\/p>\n

The island of 3.2 million people has reported 277 killings so far this year, compared with 325 killings in the same period last year.<\/p>\n

\n More from CBS News\n <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A tourist from New York was fatally shot early Sunday while visiting Puerto Rico to attend\u00a0Bad Bunny’s residency,…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":135013,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5122],"tags":[5229,71844,405,403,5226,5225,5228,5227,45546,67,586,132,5230,68,2969],"class_list":{"0":"post-135012","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-new-york","8":"tag-america","9":"tag-bad-bunny","10":"tag-new-york","11":"tag-new-york-city","12":"tag-newyork","13":"tag-newyorkcity","14":"tag-ny","15":"tag-nyc","16":"tag-puerto-rico","17":"tag-united-states","18":"tag-united-states-of-america","19":"tag-unitedstates","20":"tag-unitedstatesofamerica","21":"tag-us","22":"tag-usa"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/115005952230263679","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/135012","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=135012"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/135012\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/135013"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=135012"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=135012"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=135012"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}