SAN ANTONIO – A suspect has been indicted in the death of a man who was struck by a stray bullet as he drove along Loop 410 on the Northwest Side late last year.
Kevin Perez was formally charged with murder in the death of 35-year-old Arnulfo Adrian Cortez, the Bexar County District Attorney’s Office said Friday.
The office states that Perez “intentionally and knowingly caused the death of Arnulfo Cortez by shooting Cortez with a deadly weapon and that Perez committed an act clearly dangerous to human life...”
San Antonio police said that, on the night of Dec. 29, Perez argued with his girlfriend and fired off rounds indiscriminately.
At least one of those bullets hit Cortez as he was driving by, police said.
Cortez crashed his vehicle into a utility pole and stanchion before he struck a rock wall near Mossrock Drive and Robin Hill along Loop 410, not far from the Interstate 10 interchange.
He died of multiple gunshot wounds, the Bexar County Medical Examiner’s Office previously told KSAT. A witness said it appeared Cortez also suffered an injury to his upper back.
He was pronounced dead at the scene.
“Sounded like something I’ve never heard before — a crazy crash of things cracking and breaking. Just a super loud boom,” the witness said at the time.
Rubi Albarado, Cortez’s fiancee, previously told KSAT that she found his truck “all destroyed” when she went looking for him, worried after he didn’t answer her calls.
They had just gotten engaged in October, she said.
Cortez’s last known address was at an apartment in Balcones Heights, about a three-minute drive from where he crashed.
The District Attorney’s Office said Perez was also indicted on a charge of felon in possession of a firearm.
The shooting happened before the fifth anniversary of his release from confinement or supervision for a February 2015 conviction of felon in possession of body armor, the office said.
This case is being prosecuted by the Criminal Trial Division in the 227th District Court.