For the third time in three weeks and the fourth time this year, Palm Springs police are investigating a homicide in the city.
The latest incident occurred Tuesday when authorities say an unidentified woman was stabbed in the 1700 block of East Arenas Rd. and died at the scene. Police arrived at the scene around 10 p.m. and detained a person of interest, saying, “The preliminary information indicates the subject detained is most likely the suspect in this homicide.”
Police Chief Andy Mills said the stabbing appears to be an isolated incident and that officers remained at the scene to collect evidence.
“There’s no danger to anyone else in the community,” he said in a video posted to the department’s social media channels. “The suspect is detained at this point. It looks like it’s pretty self-contained at this point.”
Tuesday’s apparent homicide follows two others in recent weeks. On Feb. 19, a woman was found dead in her home in the 600 block of Rosa Parks Road. Her death was later ruled a homicide. On Feb. 25, a man whose vehicle slammed into a power pole at Rosa Parks Road and Granada Avenue was found to have a gunshot wound. It was not immediately clear if he died due to the gunshot or the impact of the collision.
The woman who died on Feb. 19 has not been identified, and police have released no other details about her death. The man who died on Feb. 25 was identified as 45-year-old Jermaine Hamilton. The Riverside County Coroner’s Office did not list Hamilton’s city of residence, but public records show a man matching his description had a Cabazon address.
The city’s first homicide of 2022 occurred the evening of Jan. 11, when the body of a 32-year-old man was discovered in a parking lot in the 56000 block of Ramon Road. Witnesses reported that the man had been in an altercation with another man and that they heard gunfire following the altercation. No suspects have been named in that case.
There were seven reported homicides in the city in 2021. Police and the Riverside County District Attorney’s Office are still investigating three of them, including an incident on Oct. 25 where a 38-year-old Desert Hot Springs woman was found dead in a vehicle near the area of Cherokee Way and East Palm Canyon Drive.
