High bail for man charged in double shooting outside Friend Street bar

Ruben Pina, 29, of Fall River, was ordered held in lieu of $500,000 bail Friday on charges he and a pal opened fire outside the Greatest Bar in December, sending two people to the hospital with serious injuries, the Suffolk County District Attorney's office reports.

Prosecutors say Pina and a still unidentified second man were gunning for members of a rival gang on the night of Dec. 2. Pina shot one man in the head; his accomplice, when found, will be charged with shooting the other victim in the legs.

The victims had just left a Friend Street nightclub when Pina and a group of his associates approached them. A verbal altercation ensued, after which Pina walked a short distance to a parked sport-utility vehicle, retrieved a firearm, and returned to where the victims were. Pina then shot one of the victims in the head. A second gunman shot the second victim repeatedly in the legs.

Prosecutors say a Boston police officer working a detail nearby heard the shots and saw the muzzle flashes but "was repeatedly blocked in his pursuit by a car" driven by another alleged associate of Pina's. That man, Etson Alves, was arrested and indicted as an accessory after the fact.

The DA's office says that among the evidence against Pina are photos on a Canon digital SLR camera found in Alves's car that showed Pina at a party earlier in the night wearing the same "tight-fitting, white, long-sleeved shirt" one of the gunmen captured on surveillance photos was wearing. According to the DA's office, Boston Police officers found what they think is that shirt on a search of Pina's apartment.

The DA's office adds the gun believed to be the one Pina used was recovered a few days later when two other alleged friends of his were arrested following a routine traffic stop. Neither of them, however, was at the Greatest Bar that night.

Innocent, etc.