Christopher Brandon Dominguez was charged with capital murder as the second defendant in the Mesa Drive shooting.

A second capital-murder booking is a second accusation in the same shooting. It is not a conviction for either man. Houston police say Dominguez was arrested Oct. 2, five days after they booked Torres, and that Torres admitted a role when he was questioned. An admission police describe, and a felon-in-possession count stacked on Dominguez's capital-murder charge, still have to be proved in the two courts HPD named. The 17-year-old has not been publicly identified.

The Houston Police Department said officers responded about 1:20 a.m. Sunday, Sept. 27, 2026, to a person-down call at 10100 Mesa Drive and found a male unconscious in the driver's seat. He had multiple gunshot wounds. Paramedics pronounced him dead at the scene. HPD's Oct. 2 release identified him as 17. FOX 26 Houston reported he was a 17-year-old boy and that officers found him near Mesa Drive and Everglade Drive. The Harris County Institute of Forensic Sciences had not released his name, pending family notification, HPD said. He is not named here. A death at the scene and an age on a police release are what investigators reported. They are not a verdict.

HPD said surveillance video and automatic license plate readers showed the shooting started in a parking lot at 9905 Mesa Drive. The victim and the suspect vehicle met there, the suspect tried to rob him, and he was shot during a struggle, the department said. He tried to drive away and struck a pole at 10100 Mesa Drive. FOX 26 reported the same sequence and attributed it to the police release. A robbery theory in a charging release is the accusation. It is not a finding that a robbery happened, and it is not a finding of which person fired.

HPD said detectives, with the Southeast Patrol Division and the Patrol Support Team, found the suspect vehicle and detained the driver, Diego Gene Torres, 18. The department said that when he was questioned, Torres admitted his role in the fatal shooting. The Harris County District Attorney's Office accepted a capital murder charge, and he was booked into the Harris County Jail on that count in the 248th Criminal District Court. A police account of what a suspect said in questioning is not a guilty plea. Torres has not, in these releases, stood in court and admitted the charge.

HPD said further investigation identified Christopher Brandon Dominguez, 21, as a suspect, and that on Friday, Oct. 2, the Special Response Team and the Eastside Crime Suppression Team arrested him. He is charged with capital murder and felon in possession of a weapon in the 209th Criminal District Court. FOX 26 reported the same two counts and the same arrest. HPD asked anyone with information to call the homicide division at 713-308-3600 or Crime Stoppers at 713-222-TIPS. Two cause numbers in two district courts are two cases. Neither booking is a conviction, and the Oct. 2 arrest does not reopen Torres's charge as a finding. All defendants are presumed innocent until proven guilty in a court of law.