Arrest made in fatal shooting at Bensalem apartment complex

A 31-year-old man has been arrested and charged with a fatal shooting Saturday night at the Bensalem Township apartment complex where he lives.

Abel Mendoza-Ramirez is charged with homicide, first-degree murder, third-degree murder, and possession of an instrument of crime in the death of 40-year-old Jose Miguel Tenorio-Ruiz at Bucks Meadows Apartments.

Officers responding to a 911 call reporting a shooting shortly before 6 p.m. Saturday found Tenorio-Ruiz lying in the Bucks Meadows parking lot with a gunshot wound to his torso, police said. He was pronounced dead at Jefferson Torresdale Hospital soon afterward.

After talking to multiple witnesses at the scene on Knights Road, police established that Mendoza-Ramirez was the suspected shooter. Less than an hour after the initial 911 call, a Newton Township police officer saw Mendoza-Ramirez’s Ford van, stopped the vehicle without incident, and took him into custody, police said.

The shooting appears to have stemmed from “a minor physical altercation” between the two men, police said. After that encounter, Mendoza-Ramirez went to his van and returned with a semi-automatic handgun tucked in his waistband, police said.

The two men exchanged words a second time, then Mendoza-Ramirez fired two rounds at the feet of Tenorio-Ruiz, according to police. During a subsequent struggle over the gun, Tenorio-Ruiz was shot and Mendoza-Ramirez fled the scene, police said. It was not clear whether Tenorio-Ruiz also lived at the apartment complex.

Mendoza-Ramirez was being held Sunday in the Bucks County Correctional Facility without bail.