Arraignment Set in Fatal Indio Shooting

By City News Service

A 28-year-old parolee is scheduled to be arraigned Wednesday on charges of murder and other felonies for allegedly shooting a man in Indio after the victim crashed his car into the defendant’s Porsche SUV.

James “Chip” Milton Nathaniel is being held in lieu of $2 million bail at the Larry D. Smith Correctional Facility in Banning.

The defendant is charged with first-degree murder, spousal abuse, making terrorist threats, being a felon in possession of a firearm and violating parole.

Nathaniel was arrested in San Bernardino May 21 by local police working with a U.S. Marshals’ task force. A handgun not related to the killing was recovered during the arrest, police Sgt. Daniel Marshall said.

Indio police released Nathaniel’s name and photo April 23 and asked for the public’s help in finding him.

The shooting happened in the early morning of April 19 in the 43000 block of Kenya Street. Officers found 35-year-old Apolonio Carranza seated in his white Nissan Murano with multiple gunshot wounds. He died at the scene.

Witnesses told police that Carranza, who went by the nickname “Polo,” had been visiting a mutual associate of his and Nathaniel’s, who lived in a home at the location, according to an arrest warrant declaration prepared by Indio police Detective Leonardo Perafan.

Sometime around 2 a.m., Nathaniel arrived with his wife after a night of clubbing and chatted with Carranza near the curb, Perafan wrote. The men alternatively joked, then argued for 15 to 20 minutes about whether to race for “pink slips” to their cars, and at some point, Carranza struck the Porsche with the Murano, according to the declaration.

Witnesses reported hearing 10 to 12 shots, then Nathaniel called for his wife to get in the car and sped off, according to Perafan.

Officers reported finding a large quantity of methamphetamine packaged in small bindles inside Carranza’s car, consistent with drug sales, the declaration states.

Nathaniel was on parole after serving a 10-year sentence for shooting another man in 2005 as the victim drove in Indio. Nathaniel got that sentence reduced for technical reasons at an April 2014 hearing and was released from prison a short time later, court records show.