Gabriel Salazar Arrested; – Indio police have apprehended a man believed to be involved in the deadly shooting of a 23-year-old individual earlier this month.
Gabriel Salazar, aged 41, was taken into custody at approximately 11:57 a.m. on Saturday, December 20, near Avenue 51 and Filmore Street in Coachella. He was arrested without any incidents and was unarmed at the time, as stated in a press release on Tuesday, December 23, by Indio police spokesperson Sgt. Abe Plata.
Salazar has been booked into the John J. Benoit Detention Center in Indio on charges of homicide and weapons offenses, according to Plata. He is scheduled to appear in court on Wednesday, December 24, at the Larson Justice Center in Indio, based on jail records.
Plata confirmed that the deceased individual was Angel Ernesto Yee Mendoza, 23, who was discovered unresponsive with gunshot wounds in his vehicle on December 16 in the 47-000 block of Bluejay Street.
The investigation encompassed two interconnected crime scenes, including a prior shooting on Dove Street, located approximately a block away from where Yee Mendoza was subsequently found. Police reported that there were no known victims in the earlier shooting incident.
Following the Dove Street shooting, Yee Mendoza drove to a residence on Bluejay Street, where a “brief verbal confrontation” with Salazar “escalated into an exchange of gunfire,” according to Plata. Salazar fled the scene prior to the arrival of law enforcement.
An unregistered handgun retrieved from the vehicle in which Yee Mendoza was located is believed to be the firearm he possessed, Plata indicated. Bullet casings were discovered at both crime scenes.
Emergency responders attempted to perform life-saving measures before Yee Mendoza was transported by ambulance to a local hospital, where he ultimately succumbed to his injuries.
