Man Is Shot to Death After Fistfight in Bar

What started out as a fistfight in a sports bar ended with the fatal shooting of a 25-year-old man in front of a midtown gas station.

The victim’s mother had this epitaph for her son: “He was born a fighter. When he was drinking he would get into these bar brawls. And that’s what he died from--a bar brawl.”

John Regos, 25, of Simi Valley, was shot once in the chest during a fight on Los Angeles Avenue about 11:30 p.m. Thursday, police said. A suspect was arrested immediately after the slaying.

The fight followed an earlier confrontation Regos had at the nearby MVP Sports Bar and Grill. Some men in the bar had shouted derogatory remarks at Regos’ girlfriend and a fight ensued, police said.

After exchanging blows with the men, Regos walked with his girlfriend across the street to the Shell gas station where they encountered friends of the men Regos had fought with in the bar.

Thomas Blanks, 25, of Simi Valley exchanged swings with Regos before pulling out a small handgun and firing, police said. Regos then stumbled toward the service station’s mini-mart and collapsed in the parking lot.

A police officer on patrol heard the shot and arrived in time to block Blanks’ car from pulling out of the station, authorities said, adding that Officer Stephanie Shannon found a small-caliber handgun in Blanks’ car.

Police arrested Blanks and booked him at the East Valley Sheriff’s Station on suspicion of murder.

Regos was rushed to Simi Valley Hospital where he was pronounced dead at 12:16 a.m. Friday.

“He died a tragic death because he had been drinking and got into a fight,” said his mother, Nancy Tonick. “But he had been trying to get away from all that. He was learning how to get away from the fights.”

Regos suffered from attention deficit disorder and dyslexia, and had never learned to read past an eighth-grade level, Tonick said. But he was good with his hands--designing and building his own furniture--and excelled for the past three years in his job as a machinist with Aceomatic Transmission Parts.

Recently, Regos and his girlfriend, who were living with her parents in Simi Valley, began saving up to move into a home of their own.

He also had a strong protective streak, his mother said, and had acted as the head of the house since his father left the family when Regos was 18 months old.

“He was always a little man,” Tonic said. “Never really a baby. He was real quick to grow up. Maybe he grew up too fast.” It was likely that same protective streak that drove Regos to fight the men making rude comments to his girlfriend, Tonick said.

The slaying was the second homicide this year in Simi Valley, ranked in an FBI study last year as the nation’s second-safest city among those with a population of more than 100,000.

In March, construction worker Juan Carlos De La Cruz was found shot through the head in his bedroom at his parents’ home in the 1900 block of Arcane Street. No arrests have been made.