A San Bernardino resident accused of gunning down a man in Cathedral City was charged Friday with murder.
Christian Isiah Jimenez, 20, was arrested Tuesday in Needles in connection with the Aug. 19 shooting death of Alberto Rafael Sosa Alvarez, 21. He was slated to be arraigned Friday afternoon at the Larson Justice Center in Indio on charges of murder and assault with a deadly weapon causing great bodily injury, but at the hearing, his public defender asked his arraignment to be pushed back to Tuesday.
He is also set to be arraigned on counts of resisting arrest and drug possession in connection with an arrest last year for which that he never showed up.
Jimenez remains in custody on $1 million bail.
Merisa Robinson, 20, of Needles, was arrested along with Jimenez on suspicion of being an accessory to murder and harboring a felon.
Prosecutors declined to file charges against Robinson due to “lack of sufficient evidence,” Riverside County District Attorney’s Office spokesman John Hall said. Robinson was still being held at the Indio jail Friday afternoon, and it remained unclear when she would be released.
Alvarez was found suffering from gunshot wounds around 12:50 a.m. Aug. 19 on a sidewalk in the 68300 block of Madrid Road after police received multiple 911 calls about a disturbance in the area.
Officers began life-saving efforts until paramedics arrived and took him to Desert Regional Medical Center in Palm Springs, where he died, police said.
Police were unable to immediately find any witnesses or suspects, but detectives eventually were able to identify Jimenez as a person of interest and obtained an arrest warrant for him, police said. No details were released on what led police to focus on Jimenez.
Cathedral City police on Tuesday evening tracked Jimenez to a residence in the 1900 block of Clary Drive in Needles and took both Jimenez and Robinson into custody.