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Dozens of prayer candles lined the curb outside the Rodriguez home Thursday afternoon, accompanied by shiny balloons tied to the family’s chain-link fence.
Pots of flowers led up to the family’s front porch, where a table displayed photos of 17-year-old Bryan Galicia-Rodriguez alongside the East High student’s favorite snacks — Dr. Pepper & Cream Soda, Limón potato chips and Blue Heat Takis.
Bryan was fatally shot early Sept. 10 while sitting in his car with his girlfriend near 500 South Post Street, just outside the family’s Poplar Grove house.
“I came out running because his girlfriend was screaming,” his mother, Magdalena Rodriguez, said in Spanish. “When I walked out, he was already fallen over inside the car and with a lot of blood.”
(Francisco Kjolseth | The Salt Lake Tribune) Magdalena Rodriguez attends to her son’s memorial altar on the porch of her home on Thursday Sept. 15, 2022. Her son Bryan Galicia-Rodriguez, 17, was fatally shot early Saturday, Sept. 10, 2022, while inside his pickup truck near his home.
Police are still investigating the shooting but have not made any arrests.
“I just want justice for my son,” the boy’s mother said Thursday. “They took part of my heart.”
Just a block down the street, more flowers decorate another curbside memorial. But these bouquets are for Magdalena Rodriguez’s older son, Kevin Yhair Carrillo, who was 12 years old when he was fatally struck by a car at the intersection in 2008.
Bryan was “very young” when his brother Kevin was killed, the mother said.
“He always told me, ‘Mom, let me close my eyes to remember what my brother was like.’”
(Francisco Kjolseth | The Salt Lake Tribune) A memorial marks the place where Kevin Yhair Carrillo, 13, was killed by a car. Fourteen years later, his younger brother Bryan Galicia-Rodriguez, 17, was fatally shot outside the family's home early Saturday, Sept. 10, 2022.
The shooting
Bryan wasn’t one to stay out late, his mother said, but he and his girlfriend both worked into the evenings, and they decided to spend some time together late Sept. 9 after Bryan finished his Walmart shift at 10 p.m.
The teen was still with his girlfriend when he told his mother later that night that he would be home soon. She told him to be careful and went to bed.
At about 1 a.m., she woke up to gunfire and screaming. A shooter had unloaded multiple rounds into Bryan’s car just outside, moments before he was able to turn into the family’s driveway.
His girlfriend, who was still in the passenger seat, was not injured. Bryan was taken to the hospital but later died of his injuries.
Investigators consider the ambush a targeted attack, but as of Friday evening had not publicly identified a suspected shooter. The only thing the family has heard from police is that relatives would be informed of any new developments, the mother said Thursday.
“I know my son, and a lot of neighbors know that my son didn’t get in trouble,” she said. “I’ve been living here for 20 years, and everyone asks me why they did it. I mean, why were there people to do that to my son?”
‘I’ve never had any cause for concern’
(Francisco Kjolseth | The Salt Lake Tribune) Magdalena Rodriguez takes a moment to talk about her loving son Bryan Galicia-Rodriguez, 17, who was fatally shot near 500 South Post Street early Saturday, Sept. 10, 2022.
Neighbor Madison McArthur told The Salt Lake Tribune that she did not know Bryan well, but he was always a friendly face.
“It’s just been the typical neighbor stuff,” McArthur said. “Very polite, very nice kids. Every single time I walked outside, they’d wave at us ... When I was really pregnant, he helped me dig my car out of the snow one morning when my husband was gone.”
“There’s a lot of things in this in this neighborhood that I do worry about and [that] stress me out,” McArthur continued. “And truly all those boys and all their friends — I’ve never had any issue with them. And I’ve never had any cause for concern.”
Magdalena Rodriguez remembers her son as a smart boy who loved cars and computer games. He hoped to one day buy her a nice house with a lots of rooms, a closed yard and a tall fence to corral the family’s two beagles named Max and Gina.
But he won’t be able to see that dream realized.
The mother said she hopes more people will realize that what happened to her son shows Utah isn’t so safe, and that there needs to be more regulation of firearms to prevent shootings like these.
“How is it possible that children or young people at 18, cannot buy alcohol or smoke cigarettes? [But] can get a gun? We are backwards,” she said. “I need justice and for the police [to] resolve the case, and for my son’s death does to not go unpunished.”
Anyone with information on the fatal shooting of Bryan Galicia-Rodriguez may contact Salt Lake City police investigators at 801-799-3000.
(Francisco Kjolseth | The Salt Lake Tribune) Friends, family and neighbors erect a memorial at the spot where Bryan Galicia-Rodriguez, 17, was fatally shot on Saturday night, Sept. 10, 2022, while sitting in his pickup truck with his girlfriend after arriving home.