SAN ANTONIO — Investigators with the Bexar County Sherriff's Office discovered a key piece of evidence that connects at least one man to this month's shooting incident at Joint Base San Antonio training facility.
According to San Antonio police, a car pulled up to the Chapman Training Annex gates near Ray Ellison Boulevard and Medina Base Road before occupants fired off multiple rounds at Air Force security twice in the early morning hours of Aug. 17.
At last check, SAPD said the investigation is active and ongoing. But Bexar County sheriff's deputies recently uncovered a clue in an unrelated shooting that connects a gun to both crimes.
According to an arrest warrant, at around 10 p.m. on Aug. 17, deputies were called out to a home in the 1500 block of Marbach Oaks for gunfire. When they got to the scene, witnesses said a father had been shot while holding his 6-month-old son.
According to police documents, witnesses told detectives that 19-year-old Elijah Martinez, who shares the same address, was cleaning a loaded gun when his friend, 19-year-old Joseph Jimenez, asked if he could handle the firearm.
When Martinez handed over the gun, Jimenez “racked the slide and pulled the trigger,” according to an arrest warrant.
Deputies said the father, whom KENS 5 is choosing not to name in this story, was hit while holding his baby. The child was unharmed, and the father was rushed to the hospital.
According to deputies, Martinez and Jimenez took off after shots were fired, taking the gun with them.
But they left behind a key piece of evidence. BCSO detectives said two shell casings were collected from the scene, and shared on the National Integrated Ballistic Information Network (NIBIN).
Four days later, deputies got a hit: The shell casings submitted from the Marbach Oaks shooting were a match to the shooting incident at Chapman, according to an arrest warrant.
Deputies go on to say that the shell casings discovered at the Marbach Oaks incident matched the SAPD case “where several military personnel had several rounds fired at their direction."
Jimenez and Martinez are now facing charges in connection to the shooting incident involving the father and his child. Witnesses on scene told officers Martinez was the owner of the gun, according to police documents.
Martinez was arrested Wednesday and faces charges of child endangerment. As detectives report in the arrest warrant, “the defendant [Martinez], with criminal negligence, displayed a loaded firearm in the presence of an infant 6-month-old child.”
In relation to the same case, Jimenez was also arrested Wednesday. He faces charges of deadly conduct after he “recklessly pointed and discharged a loaded firearm at the direction of an infant child where the father of the child was struck,” according to the arrest warrant.
But neither Martinez nor Jimenez, whose last known address is reported on an arrest warrant as blocks away from JBSA-Lackland, have not been charged in that shooting.
On Thursday, KENS 5 reached out to SAPD to ask if investigators have identified any suspects or persons of interest in the Chapman shooting case. A spokesperson responded saying the case is still an “active and ongoing investigation,” and offered no other details, but said they would keep us informed of any new developments.