Siblings Beaten Outside East Side Nightclub

Mark Rios held a pack of ice to his swollen eye Friday afternoon as he struggled to remember the details of the beating he suffered in the early morning.

“It went so fast– I don’t know. I was just on the floor getting hit. My sister was getting hit too, that’s all I remember,” the 17-year-old said.

Mark said he and his 20-year-old sister Merle had been enjoying a night out in an East El Paso club with friends. He said they were leaving the club and were in the parking lot outside El Bandolero nightclub when they were surrounded by a group of 20 to 25 young men and women.

“They jumped out of nowhere and started trying to fight us,” Rios said. “We were like ‘no, we don’t want to fight’ and they just started swinging at us.”

Patches of dried blood outside the venue marked the spot Rios said he and his friends were beaten. He said his sister Merle tried stopping the fight when she got pulled into the brawl.

“I couldn’t help her out ’cause I was on the floor getting kicked,” he said.

Merle Rios is at Del Sol Medical Center with a broken nose.

El Paso Police spokesman Darrel Petry said two police units were called out to El Bandolero at around 2:15 a.m. on Friday because of the brawl. He said police have been called out to the club 12 times this year to investigate assault allegations.

Rios said his attackers left before police arrived on the scene. Four people were hospitalized following the fight.

“We were outnumbered, we had no chance,” said Rios.