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Grandview: Gun battle terrorizes neighborhood

June 10th, 2009, incident report by jbtaylor

  • May 29, 2009
  • 0
  • 1
  • West Fifth Street and Crescent Drive
  • Grandview
  • Washington
  • 98930

Ross A Courtney. Yakima Herald - Republic. Yakima, Wash.: May 29, 2009. pg. C.1

(Copyright (c) 2009 Yakima Herald-Republic)

By ROSS COURTNEY

YAKIMA HERALD-REPUBLIC

GRANDVIEW -- At the corner of West Fifth Street and Crescent Drive, residents of the small but well-kept homes share garden vegetables.

They hire teenage boys to mow their yards, mothers run in-home day cares and young men help old ladies install air conditioners.

But it's also a place where rival gang members live practically next door to one another and occasionally fight in the streets and alleys.

"It's not unusual to hear a shot or two around here," said a longtime neighbor in her 70s who would not give out her name for fear of reprisals.

But a Wednesday night gun battle set a new low.

Police say two gangs fired as many as 25 shots at each other.

Bullets struck three homes and a 27-year-old man suffered a minor gunshot wound to the leg. He was treated and released, then arrested for his suspected role in the melee.

Police Chief Dave Charvet said his detectives will seek charges of assault with a firearm.

Two women, believed to be their 20s or 30s, were arrested at a home about a mile away, where one the vehicles seen fleeing the shooting scene was found. Charvet said he expects them to be charged with possession of marijuana with intent to deliver.

The three suspects will be taken today to the Yakima County jail while the police search for more.

Charvet said the shooting is linked to a Fifth Street home, long considered a gang haven. It was full Wednesday because of a family funeral. Roughly four houses away and across the street live members of a rival gang, Charvet said.

"That's what fueled this," he said.

Police are "keeping vigilance on the place" to prevent flare ups.

Residents paint a story of contrasts in the neighborhood.

Every afternoon, the streets come to life with kids walking along Fifth Street and neighbors waving to passersby in their cars.

A woman named Carla, who would not give her last name for fear of retaliation, has lived there for seven years. She said she's seen fights between groups of young men wielding bats and golf clubs. And a SWAT team seized a young man from a house about four or five months ago, she said.

But Wednesday night was worse, she said.

"This is different, very different," she said. "Scary."

She called the police when she heard the shots, which continued as she talked to the 9-1-1 dispatcher.

The woman in her 70s ducked inside her home and heard children screaming outside her back door, which she often keeps open to allow a breeze.

On one hand, she speaks kindly of the young men who helped her install a window air conditioner a few months ago. But she also tends her garden early in the morning to avoid contact with any group of young men, especially when they wear similar-colored clothing.

"It makes me kind of uneasy at times," she said. "It's not all the houses, it's just one or two."

A woman who runs an in-home day care, who also would not give her name, said the neighborhood was usually quiet. She and her 9-year-old son sprawled flat on their floor when they heard gunfire Wednesday night. Three houses were hit, police said. Hers was not one of them.

"Thanks to God," she said in Spanish, with a quick sign of the cross and a smile.

Bullets struck the home of a 19-year-old woman with a 7-month-old baby. Mother and child were in their front yard when the shooting broke out and they took refuge in a neighbor's home.

The mother, who would not give her name, said she grew up on the corner and that when she and her brothers wear certain color shirts, gang members threaten to beat them up.

It's worse when the weather warms up, she said.

"Every summer, it gets crazy," she said. "In the middle of street, they'll be fighting."

Lee Sanchez, 29, said shootings are just as common on that corner as anywhere else in the Valley.

"We just don't know when it's going to happen," Sanchez said.