Christian Bernal-Hernandez, 26, a Hispanic/Latino man, stepped out the back door of the Playas de Sinaloa restaurant with two other men late on the night of September 18, 2010. At about 11:39 p.m., gunshots cracked the air behind the business along the 4700 block of East Charleston Boulevard, near Nellis. Officers responding to a 911 call found Bernal-Hernandez behind the restaurant with multiple gunshot wounds; another man had also been shot, and a third man who had gone outside with them had
fled. The scene was cordoned off under the hard glow of parking-lot lights as detectives documented the rear service area where the brief encounter turned fatal.
Days later, the coroner publicly identified Bernal-Hernandez and listed his cause of death as gunshot wounds to the chest and left arm. The identification placed him at the same commercial corridor where officers had first found him, a stretch of Charleston that draws heavy foot traffic by day and grows hushed after closing time. The medical findings reinforced what patrol officers and medics saw that night: the attack had been sudden and deadly, leaving little chance for intervention before life slipped away.
Homicide detectives traced the moments before the shooting to the back of the restaurant and canvassed the area for witnesses, piecing together that the trio had walked outside together and that at least one of the surviving men fled after the gunfire. Over the years, the case has remained listed among the Las Vegas Metropolitan Police Department’s open homicides, with appeals for tips routed through LVMPD Homicide and Crime Stoppers. No arrests have been announced, and no suspect has been publicly named; investigators continue to seek information that could identify who pulled the trigger and why the meeting behind the restaurant turned into a killing.
