‘You are about to see a man getting shot to death’: After Antioch music video shoot, the night ended in homicide

ANTIOCH — Hours before Jesus Soto shot and killed Richard Morello Jr. outside a home in southeast Antioch, the two appeared by the city’s waterfront together to participate in a music video for a local rapper.

Later, on the 200 block of Cobblestone Drive, at least four to five people, including Morello, apparently became displeased with Soto and kicked him out of the home. Video from a neighbor’s Ring camera shows a man identified by police as Soto pulling a pistol, then chasing Morello while continuing to shoot, and pulling the trigger at least twice after Morello stumbles and falls to the ground.

Morello, 27, was declared dead about 15 minutes after midnight on Aug. 25, 2025. Now Soto, 37, of Vallejo, is on trial facing a charge of murder. His attorney says the killing was in self-defense, done after the others activated Soto’s fight or flight response by kicking and pummeling him so viscously that it activated a camera’s sound response across the street.

Morello, an East Contra Costa rapper who used the stage name $mooth, died from multiple gunshot wounds after crawling into the home where he and the others had spent much of the evening. He left behind a wife and two children, who were only 6 and 8 when he was killed, according to an online fundraiser.

In his opening statement, Deputy District Attorney James Bass didn’t say why the others wanted to eject Soto from their gathering that night, but said the case came down to two things: Soto’s pride and his murderous intent that formed when it was hurt.

“You are about to see a man getting shot to death,” Bass warned the jury, after echoing Soto’s first words heard on video after the gun goes off: “Westside! Who wants more?”

Soto was arrested two days after the shooting, in Stockton, about an hour’s drive east from his home on Corcoran Avenue in Vallejo. Antioch police searched his apartment within hours of the shooting, finding evidence he drove him GMC pickup truck there before heading to the central valley, leaving behind a 49ers jersey soaked with blood that he’d worn hours earlier at the music video shoot.

At the video shoot on I Street in downtown Antioch, things seemed to be going ok. The men were both there and no problems arose. A video posted to Morello’s Instagram account shows a group of men posing for a camera, including Soto, and tags another Antioch rapper. The videos were later captured by police and were shown to jurors on Monday.

In his opening statement, Soto’s lawyer, William Welch, said that before the shooting, Soto was “mercilessly beaten inside” the home by four to five others and that jurors will hear from a psychiatrist about how the human body “switches into survival mode” for several minutes during such an attack. The revolver Soto used in the shooting was lawfully owned and registered, Welch added.

“He can have that gun,” Welch said. “You can use that gun in self-defense, and that’s exactly what he did.”