Robert Soliz Case: Road Rage Shooting, Acquittal, and Plea Deal

The Robert Soliz case is the Harris County, Texas prosecution of a Houston man who was acquitted of murder in November 2022 for the November 9, 2020 shooting death of off-duty Houston Police Department Sergeant Sean Rios during a road rage confrontation. A jury accepted Soliz’s self-defense argument, but he did not walk free: he remained jailed on unrelated felony charges and, in June 2023, pleaded guilty to two of them and was sentenced to five years in prison.

The 2020 Road Rage Shooting

On the afternoon of November 9, 2020, Soliz and Sergeant Sean Rios were both driving north on Interstate 45 in North Houston when their vehicles nearly collided. Soliz testified that Rios repeatedly swerved into his lane and, when told to stay in his lane, responded with an obscene gesture.¹ Both men exited at Gulf Bank Road and stopped near the Cactus King nursery on Stuebner Airline Road.

Witness accounts and court records indicated that Rios got out of his vehicle and approached Soliz with a gun in hand. Soliz grabbed his own firearm, exited, and put his car between himself and Rios. Shots were exchanged, and Rios was hit in the chest.² Wounded, Rios ran to the Taj Inn and Suites motel at 7766 North Freeway, entered the lobby covered in blood, asked staff to call 911, and collapsed. He died there.

Rios was 47, a 25-year HPD veteran, and a former U.S. Marine assigned to the Airport Division. On the day of the shooting he was driving his personal vehicle to his shift at George Bush Intercontinental Airport, in plain clothes.³

Arrest

Soliz left the scene and did not call 911. By his own testimony, he did not learn the man he shot was a police officer until relatives told him later that evening. He handed the firearm he had used to a friend, and the weapon was never recovered.¹

The next morning, November 10, 2020, Soliz retained attorney Paul Looney, who was driving him to the Harris County District Attorney’s Office to surrender. Police intercepted them on the Katy Freeway and arrested Soliz during a traffic stop.⁴ At the time of the arrest, he was found in possession of Sergeant Rios’s handcuffs. He was charged with murder in the 179th State District Court.

Soliz’s Prior Record

Soliz had a substantial criminal history before the shooting. Court records showed arrests going back to 2014 for offenses including marijuana possession, criminal trespass, evading arrest, unlawfully carrying a weapon, and making a terroristic threat.⁵ He had five prior misdemeanor and two prior felony convictions and had served a six-month jail sentence in 2018. When Rios was killed, Soliz was out on a $100 bond stemming from a February 2020 charge of carrying a handgun in a motor vehicle.⁶

While awaiting the murder trial, he also faced two counts of aggravated assault with a deadly weapon from separate 2020 incidents. One, in January 2020, involved allegedly threatening a gas station clerk with a gun after being asked for identification. The other, in October 2020, was another road rage episode in which he allegedly fired shots at another driver after pulling alongside him at a stoplight and saying, “I’m gonna pop you.”⁷ Bond was set at $100,000 on each aggravated assault count.

The Murder Trial

The case was tried before Judge Ana Martinez in the 179th District Court. Soliz was represented by Paul Looney and Wade Smith.⁸

The Prosecution’s Case

Prosecutors portrayed Soliz as the aggressor and argued that Rios, sensing criminal activity, was acting in his capacity as a police officer when he intervened. Their evidence included surveillance video from a nearby auto shop identifying Soliz, cell phone videos of Soliz brandishing a handgun while driving on earlier occasions, and .40-caliber and .38-caliber shell casings recovered between the motel and the nursery. They also highlighted an Instagram video Soliz recorded shortly after the shooting, in which he said he nearly died and shouted “Woo-wee,” arguing that his behavior, along with his choice to take his bullet-damaged car to a transmission shop instead of calling 911, was inconsistent with genuine fear.⁹

The Self-Defense Argument

The defense framed the encounter as a shootout between two armed private citizens. Wade Smith told jurors that Rios was off duty, in plain clothes, driving his personal vehicle, and never identified himself as a police officer. He called it “pure self-defense” and argued that even if Soliz fired first, Rios was already pointing a gun at him.²

Soliz testified that Rios started the confrontation on the highway, followed him off the freeway, and approached his car with a drawn weapon. The defense also told jurors that Rios had been taking prescription medications for anxiety, depression, and insomnia. Witnesses at the nursery reported no indication that Rios was a police officer, and body camera footage from responding officers showed his uniform shirt and badge hanging over the back seat of his personal car rather than on his person.⁹

Looney also attacked HPD’s investigation, calling it “tilted and incomplete.” He alleged that an inexperienced investigator had been intentionally assigned to the case, that data from Rios’s phone was never collected, and that key witness interviews were never conducted.¹⁰

The Acquittal

On November 15, 2022, a jury of five women and eight men returned a not guilty verdict after roughly seven hours of deliberation.¹¹ The jury was not offered any lesser charge to consider. Acquittals in killings involving police officers, on or off duty, are extremely rare.

Houston Police Chief Troy Finner said he was “deeply disappointed” with the outcome and pledged continued support for Rios’s family. First Assistant District Attorney David Mitcham said, “We saw the evidence differently than the jury, and though we cannot agree with the jury’s decision, we appreciate their time and service.”⁹ Looney argued HPD should never have investigated the case because of the conflict of interest and accused authorities of “counting on a jury that would not let somebody that looked like our client be acquitted of killing what turned out to be an off-duty officer.”¹¹

The 2023 Plea and Prison Sentence

The acquittal did not release Soliz. He stayed in the Harris County Jail on the two 2020 counts of aggravated assault with a deadly weapon and on a charge of possessing a prohibited substance in a correctional facility, filed after marijuana was found in his cell in July 2022.¹²

In June 2023, in a plea agreement arranged by attorney Millie Thompson, Soliz pleaded guilty to two charges: aggravated assault with a deadly weapon for the January 2020 gas station incident, and the prohibited-substance count. He was sentenced to five years in prison with credit for nearly two years already served in the Harris County Jail, and became eligible for parole. The Harris County District Attorney’s Office dismissed the remaining pending charges as part of the deal. Looney described the additional charges Soliz had faced after the murder acquittal as “targeted” and as unfair treatment tied to the fact that he had killed an officer.¹²

1
Houston Chronicle. Houston Sergeant’s Accused Killer Testifies About Road Rage Encounter
2
Houston Public Media. Robert Soliz Acquitted of Murder in Death of Off-Duty Houston Police Officer
3
City of Houston. Sergeant Sean Sebastian Rios
4
City of Houston. Houston Police Department News Release
5
ABC13. Man Accused of Killing HPD Sergeant
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The Texan. Suspect in Murder of Houston Police Sergeant Out on $100 Bond at Time of Shooting
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Houston Chronicle. Suspect in Sgt. Sean Rios’ Death Faces New Charges
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Houston Chronicle. Murder Trial Over Houston Police Sergeant’s Death
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Houston Chronicle. Robert Soliz Trial Verdict
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ABC13. Robert Soliz Acquitted, Attorney Calling for Change
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FOX 26 Houston. Attorneys for Robert Soliz Speak Out Following Acquittal in HPD Sgt. Death
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Houston Chronicle. Robert Soliz Plea and Prison Sentence