Riverside County sheriff's deputies block traffic on Wednesday night on Redondo Sur in Coachella where three people, one of them a child, have been shot. The toddler died from his injuries this morning. / Colin Atagi, The Desert Sun
The house in the 84-400 block of Redondo Sur in Coachella where a toddler was shot and killed on Wednesday night. / The Desert Sun
This truck parked in the driveway of the home on Redondo Sur in Coachella where a child was killed and two others injured has at least five bullet holes in it. / Xochitl Pena, The Desert Sun
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COACHELLA — A 2-year-old boy died at Loma Linda University Children's Hospital after he was shot in the head Wednesday night at a Coachella home.
Elijah Banuelos, 2, of Perris died at 10:20 p.m., the Riverside County Coroner’s Office said this afternoon.
The coroner's office listed Elijah's age as 2, though police said he would have turned 2 in April. He was taken to John F. Kennedy Memorial Hospital in Indio and airlifted late Wednesday to Loma Linda, where he died, police said.
Two men were also shot at the home on Redondo Sur in the Rancho Mariposa community and suffered minor injuries.
One man was treated at the scene after he suffered a graze wound to his torso. The other was hospitalized with a gunshot to the leg but was later released, police said this afternoon.
Authorities said the shooting occurred shortly before 7:30 p.m. in the 84-400 block of Redondo Sur.
No arrests have been made, spokesman Deputy Angel Ramos said. Investigators have not released descriptions of the shooters or their vehicle or said anything about what led to the shooting.
“We’re not going to release any information because it might seriously damper our investigation,” Ramos said.
Thursday morning, two men stood in the driveway of the home where the shooting occurred, inspecting a black 4x4 truck with five bullet holes in the passenger side. They declined to talk.
Sheriff’s Capt. Ray Gregory, who is chief of the Coachella Police Department, said the two men and the child were inside a garage at the home and had the door open.
A car carrying several people pulled up and multiple people got out and began firing on those inside the garage.
Cassandra Gomez, 22, said she lives down the street and was home at the time of the shooting.
"It sounded like they reloaded. They paused for a while and started up again," she said, adding that she heard about eight to nine shots.
Gregory confirmed Gomez’s account.
“There were a number of expended casings around the scene,” he said.
The area is a relatively new community, Gomez said.
Built in 2007, Rancho Mariposa is a community of single-story and two-story homes occupied by middle-class families with children, she said, adding that an incident of this type here is "rare."
The home where Wednesday's shooting occurred is the last home on a street in a neighborhood that appears new, with spacious, modern-looking homes with well-manicured lawns.
The neighborhood showed little sign of the shooting Thursday, though cars that drove by the house or even the street slowed down and turned their heads toward the home. Few people walked outside, where it was nearly silent.
Neighbors called it a calm and quiet place to live, with few signs of police. They worried, though, that the shooting was gang-related.
Mary Blair, 68, lives around the corner. She and the mailwoman talked about how eerily quiet it was in the neighborhood Thursday morning.
Blair, who lives with her 6- and 7-year-old grandsons, said it’s a quiet neighborhood but most residents play in the front lawn or work on their cars in the garages.
“It’s sort of strange not seeing the children playing in the front lawn,” she said.
Blair said she and her husband, Jerry, felt helpless and hoped to deliver flowers to the family.
“I think if you shoot a child, it’s a little angel. They’re just starting life,” she said.
The home where the shooting occurred is up for sale and rented by the family hurt in the shooting, a neighbor said. The 27-year-old mother declined to give her name, worried for her son’s safety.
She arrived home late last night and needed a police escort to her door because the road to her house was blocked.
When she heard the boy had died overnight, she teared up as her own 2-year-old son tugged at her leg.
“I don’t know how people can do that,” she said. “They don’t think about the family.”
The mother said she has lived in the neighborhood for about six months and heard gunshots only once, on New Year’s Eve. The drive-by shooting was shocking to her.
Other Rancho Mariposa residents declined to be identified, but said the house where the shooting occurred is occupied by a family with two young children.
The city of Coachella contracts for police services from the Riverside County Sheriff’s Department.
Anyone with information about this incident is asked to contact investigators at (760) 863-8990.
Anonymous tips can be offered by calling CrimeStoppers, (760) 341-STOP (7867).
Desert Sun reporter Brian Indrelunas contributed to this report.
