A 20-year-old man has been charged with the shooting death of a Minneapolis man in northeast Minneapolis earlier this year.

According to authorities, Jeremiah Elijah Blackwell shot Eulalio Gonzalez-Sanchez in the parking lot of an apartment building in the 2200 block of 7th Avenue NE. on the morning of Sept. 21.

Sanchez, 37, who had moved to Minnesota from Mexico in the 2000s to be closer to his sister and nephew, was allegedly held up by Blackwell as he walked home from the bus stop after visiting his girlfriend, who lived in the Central neighborhood.

Friends and family said Sanchez had just gotten off the bus and was still texting with his girlfriend when the shooting occurred, only a few blocks from his apartment.

Authorities charged Blackwell with second-degree murder after matching the bullets that killed Sanchez to a gun they found in Blackwell's possession during a later traffic stop.

"This is a good piece of police work, using all the technology available, to bring some closure to the family and friends of Eulalio Gonzalez-Sanchez," Hennepin County Attorney Mike Freeman said Monday in a news release. "While it took more than two months to bring charges, investigators were methodically working the case and we look forward to bringing Mr. Blackwell to justice."

Weeks after the shooting, the city's 26th homicide of the year, Gonzalez's family and friends were still having difficulty making sense out of the seemingly random act of violence, according to a family friend.

Relatives and friends recalled Sanchez as a homebody who worked two jobs to pay the rent on the apartment he shared with his sister.

Blackwell, who has been in custody since Oct. 8 after being arrested in connection with another robbery in the area, told police he was in church at the time of the shooting. But cellphone records placed him near the scene of the crime that morning, authorities said.

Libor Jany • 612-673-4064 Twitter: @stribjany