KNOXVILLE, Tenn. — Knox County deputies arrested a man Sunday after a shooting in the parking lot of El Tequila Bar and Grill.
The Knox County Sheriff's Office said it responded to a disturbance and shooting at 7002 Maynardville Pike in Halls on Sunday just before 3 a.m. When the deputy arrived, he said there was a fight going on in the parking lot.
Witnesses told the deputy the fight began in the club for an unknown reason and spilled out into the parking lot. A man, identified as Darwin Valladarez, and his group started arguing and fighting with another group, the deputy said.
According to the arrest report, someone hit Valladarez's friend over the head with a beer bottle, leaving a lot of blood in the parking lot. The deputy said a black pickup truck driving through the parking lot almost hit several people at one point.
The deputy said Valladarez grabbed his gun from his black Ford F-150 located in the parking lot of a nearby hardware store and went back to the El Tequila parking lot before shooting into the air.
The deputy detained Valladarez after a witness identified him. The witness said they saw Valladarez give the gun to another man before Valladarez went back to his truck after the shooting.
Valladarez told the deputy he wasn't involved in the shooting at first, according to the arrest report. The deputy searched his truck and found a large amount of blood in the driver's seat and a handgun with a magazine inside under the driver's seat. The deputy said Valladarez then admitted to the shooting and said he was protecting himself from the black pickup truck.
The deputy arrested Valladarez for reckless endangerment with a deadly weapon.
Two people were taken to the University of Tennessee Medical Center emergency room for non-life threatening injuries.
The business has a history of problems in Halls Center, according to Knox County Trustee Justin Biggs. Records from the Knox County Emergency Communications District E-911 showed first responders received more than 50 calls for service involving the business since April 2022, and 16 of those calls happened in 2023. Five of the calls appeared to be related to the shooting.
Biggs said he received several calls Saturday night about the fight.
"Something here like this in Halls in this specific area, where you're less than half a mile from churches, a school, it's very concerning," Biggs said. "If it happened just one time I can understand, but this is a pattern we're starting to show here in Halls."
In a Knox County Beer Board meeting in December 2022, Knox County Sheriff's Office lieutenant Tom Walker talked about the problems at El Tequila. He said in a four-month span, from July 1, 2022, to Nov. 10, 2022, El Tequila had 31 calls for service. Most of those calls were for fights, medical issues or thefts, according to Walker.
"The biggest issue we had was on November 2 of 2022. Our entire night shift had to respond to... a riot," Walker said. "There were so many people fighting in the parking lot, we had to pull our entire night shift into the area to take care of the people [that were] fighting. Multiple arrests were made."
El Tequila's liquor permit is under review and has been since the December beer board meeting. County leaders made a motion to have representatives of the restaurant appear on June 20 before the Knox County Beer Board.
"About 40-something times since November, which is when we had our first major fight. It required an entire patrol shift to respond and break up a fight in the parking lot. There have been loud music calls, sexual assault complaints, one report of a rape of a juvenile, and of course the most recent event was the shooting that took place in the parking lot," said Tom Walker, with the Knox County Sheriff's Office. "The calls have been getting more and more violent."
A statement from an attorney for El Tequila is below.
It has come to my attention as recently obtained counsel for the El Tequila Bar & Grill that there have been concerns expressed by members of County Commission concerning this establishment. I recently had the pleasure of handling the hearing in which the suspension of their Beer Permit was lifted and they were allowed to once again sell beer in Knox Co. Of note, is the fact that they have never had a revocation of their State of TN ABC permit and at the Beer Board hearing it was brought to light that a number of the incidents were clearly not within the zone of foreseeability.
In addition, a news story was published last week indicating that this establishment was responsible for broken beer bottles and other issues during a recent evening and early AM. Whilst broken bottles make for compelling camera footage, it is of import that El Tequila only sells beer in cans thus rendering the attribution of these broken bottles an impossibility for their responsibility.
It is now disturbing to learn that they are being pilloried without due process by County elected officials without any personal or substantive investigation. El Tequila values its placement and participation in the Halls Community and looks forward to being a community partner serving all citizens of Halls including our Knox County expanding Hispanic population.