A man wanted in connection with the vicious assault of a San Pedro 15-year-old was arrested on Thursday after serving time on unrelated charges, officials said.
Jaymel Williams, 20, was arrested in Long Beach just after 10 a.m. in connection with the beating of Evan Jimenez, who was attacked in an alley while walking home from a friend’s house, according to Sgt. Ricky Osburn with the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department.
Sheriff’s officials identified Williams as a suspect in May, but the Long Beach resident had been in custody in San Bernardino until “a week or two ago,” Osburn said.
Deputies learned of his whereabouts Thursday morning and promptly took him into custody, he added. He is being held on suspicion of
He is being held on suspicion of attempted murder on $1 million bail, the department said in a statement.
Detectives had been monitoring Williams following the March 30 attack, first identifying him as a person of interest after speaking with bystanders who witnessed the incident.
Friends say Jimenez was hit over the head and in the face with a glass bottle, stepped on and “beaten beyond recognition” and left unconscious in an unincorporated area of San Pedro. Some officials believe it was an act of gang initiation.
Jimenez was found by a good Samaritan who took him to the hospital, where he spent weeks in the intensive care unit before beginning physical therapy.
“He’s having to really learn to walk and remember things,” his aunt, Cortney Steinhoff, told KTLA in April. “He’s really confused. He doesn’t really know what’s going on, what’s happened.”
Williams is set to be arraigned on Sept. 5 in Long Beach.