Andres Castellas, a 26-year-old father, was celebrating his birthday at a Los Angeles pizza restaurant when he tried to break up a fight between two women — a split-second decision that cost him his life.
Anight meant for birthday candles and family laughter ended in gunfire Saturday at a beloved Los Angeles neighborhood pizza restaurant — leaving a young father dead and a community shaken to its core.
Andres Castellas had just turned 26. Friends and family had gathered at Red West Pizza in Wilmington to celebrate. By all accounts, the evening was going exactly as planned — warm, joyful, and full of love. Then, in an instant, everything changed.
When a fight broke out between two women inside the restaurant, Castellas did what many would: he stepped forward to stop it. A split second later, an unidentified man opened fire. Castellas was struck and pronounced dead at the scene. A restaurant employee in his 20s was also hit and transported to a nearby hospital — his injuries are not life-threatening.
“What makes this loss even harder is that Andres was innocent. He did not deserve for his life to be taken away so tragically. A moment that should have been filled with memories and joy became a heartbreaking tragedy no one could have imagined.”
The shooter fled immediately after firing. Los Angeles police describe him as a Hispanic male, approximately 20 to 25 years of age. As of this report, he remains at large and no arrests have been made.
A GoFundMe campaign set up for Castellas’s family describes him simply as a loving father who was “surrounded by love and happiness” in his final moments — surrounded by the very people he was trying to protect.
For neighbors, the shooting has rattled their sense of safety around a spot long considered a family staple. “There’s a lot of kids there all the time,” said one resident who lives near the restaurant. “It’s scary to see that — when you can have a family moment, something like this can happen.”
The Los Angeles Police Department is actively investigating. Anyone with information is urged to contact LAPD.
