A 19-year-old and an 18-year-old are facing first-degree felony charges after San Antonio police say they robbed two people of their jewelry at gunpoint inside J Street Park on the city's East Side. Sebastian Torres Arteaga Jr. and Robert Rivas Jr. were both booked on aggravated robbery charges, according to an arrest affidavit.
The arrests were first reported by WOAI, which cited the affidavit describing how the two victims were robbed of their jewelry at gunpoint at the park. Booking photos released alongside the report were credited to the Bexar County Sheriff's Office. Details on how investigators identified the suspects, whether the jewelry or the firearm used in the robbery have been recovered, or whether any additional accomplices were involved have not been made public.
A First-Degree Felony Under Texas Law
Because the affidavit alleges a gun was displayed during the theft, prosecutors can pursue the case as aggravated robbery rather than simple robbery. Under Texas Penal Code Section 29.02, standard robbery is a second-degree felony punishable by 2 to 20 years in prison, but exhibiting a firearm or other deadly weapon during a theft automatically elevates the charge to first-degree aggravated robbery, according to Saputo Toufexis. That statutory threshold applies regardless of whether either victim was physically injured.
Under Texas Penal Code Section 29.03, a first-degree aggravated robbery conviction carries a punishment range of 5 to 99 years or life in state prison, along with a fine of up to $10,000, per the same legal source. That exposure applies to both Torres Arteaga and Rivas if they are convicted as charged. Following their arrests, both men would have been processed through Bexar County's Central Magistrate Office at 200 N. Comal Street, where a judicial officer evaluates probable cause and sets bail conditions for defendants held at the Bexar County Adult Detention Center, according to the City of San Antonio. It remains unclear what bail amounts, if any, were set in this case.
The Scene of the Alleged Robbery
J Street Park sits at 3500 J Street in East San Antonio's 78220 zip code, a municipal facility that the City of San Antonio says is open daily from 5 a.m. to 11 p.m. and includes a 0.3-mile paved trail, basketball courts, and a picnic pavilion. The park also features a pedestrian bridge over Salado Creek connecting it to the Howard W. Peak Greenway Trails System, linking it to nearby green spaces including Martin Luther King Park to the north, as reported by KENS 5. That layout connects otherwise quiet, dead-end park access to a much larger regional trail network.
The park has drawn public safety attention before. In April, it was the site of a fatal emergency response when a 44-year-old man drowned along Salado Creek adjacent to the park during flash flooding, according to KSAT. That incident is unrelated to this month's robbery arrests but adds to the park's recent history of emergency responses.
Part of a Broader Pattern in San Antonio
Robbery investigations across the city are centrally managed by SAPD's Robbery Unit within its Criminal Investigations Division, a specialized unit the department formed to handle armed mugging cases and improve case clearance rates. This case follows a string of similar armed jewelry robberies reported around San Antonio this summer. In July, Hoodline reported on a UTSA-bound football recruit's chain robbery arrest, another case involving young suspects accused of stealing gold chains at gunpoint during a Bexar County gathering that also resulted in first-degree aggravated robbery charges.
Anyone with information about the J Street Park robbery can contact Crime Stoppers of San Antonio, which offers cash rewards of up to $5,000 for anonymous tips that lead to felony arrests or indictments in aggravated robbery cases across Bexar County. Tips are managed through encrypted software designed to protect witness anonymity.
Citywide, robbery offenses fell 17% and violent street crime dropped 21.1% in 2025 compared to 2024, according to data presented to the San Antonio City Council in March, a decline credited in part to SAPD's data-driven Violent Crime Reduction Plan. Even so, this summer's cluster of gunpoint jewelry robberies involving young suspects — including this case and the earlier chain-theft arrest — suggests the citywide downward trend hasn't eliminated the pattern entirely. No additional details on the investigation into Torres Arteaga and Rivas have been released.
