The innocent are caught in the line of fire

YAKIMA, Wash. -- Twice in less than a week, gang violence in Yakima has injured the innocent.

It's all part of a spike that's been going on for more than a month now.

The latest attack happened Sunday when a 23-year-old Michigan woman was hit in the leg by a stray bullet while visiting her grandmother with her husband and two boys.

The shooting came just six days after a 13-year-old girl who lived two blocks down the same street in north-central Yakima was seriously injured by gang gunfire.

Since April, there have been at least nine gang shootings in the Yakima Valley, including an incident last month in Yakima that claimed the life of a 20-year-old man and another shooting in Grandview in which authorities estimate as many as 25 shots were exchanged.

Police acknowledge that while gang violence has a tendency to rise and fall, injury to bystanders is relatively rare in the Yakima Valley.

"It's disturbing and unusual," said Capt. Greg Copeland, "but we just don't know for sure if there's any kind of connection right now."

The first shooting happened June 1 when a 13-year-old girl was hit in the abdomen when bullets were fired into her home in the 1100 block of Roosevelt Avenue. The girl remains hospitalized.

To date, police have not identified suspects in the case. Detectives have said the girl's family was not involved in gangs, and the motive behind the attack remains unclear.

Police and witnesses said Sunday's shooting happened about 2:20 p.m. when a young man later identified as a known gang member opened fire on a group of youths lounging in the back yard of a home in the 1300 block of Roosevelt Avenue.

Also in the back yard next door was Marie Richmond, a 23-year-old mother of two from Lansing, Mich., who had arrived by train from Pasco only hours earlier to visit her grandmother, Darlene Duffey.

According to family members, Richmond was having a cigarette out back -- her grandmother doesn't allow smoking in the house -- when a bullet tore through her right leg above the knee, nicking an artery.

Richmond was rushed to a hospital in Yakima and then transferred to Harborview Medical Center in Seattle, where she remained Monday in serious condition.

Police have since identified the gunman as 18-year-old Jesus G. Cazarez, who remained at large as of Monday evening. He is wanted for suspicion of first-degree assault and attempted murder.

Richmond's father, Edward Duffey, said he heard the gunfire and then heard his daughter screaming that she'd been shot.

"I've never seen that much blood in my life," Duffey said. "I mean, it was shooting out both sides of her leg."

Darlene Duffey said she's lived in the same modest little house on Roosevelt for close to 50 years and has been saddened to witness the neighborhood's gradual decline.

Like other neighborhoods in north-central and northeast Yakima -- the areas hardest hit by gang crime -- the condition of homes vary from house to house.

Half appear well tended, with yards mowed and flowers in bloom. The other half are blown out, with weeds and garbage lining the homefront.

"It was never like this when my kids were growing up," Duffey said. "Now it's not safe for their children."

According to police, the youths next door are either in a gang or "gang-affiliated." Duffey said she's seen the boys next door grow up over the years and is all too aware of their gang connections.

About a year and a half ago, the police arrested five or six youths behind the house, she said. Another time, she watched some kind of organized beating that was being videotaped by someone in the group.

"It kind of bothers me," she said, "but I never had any problem with them."

Her son, a pool installer who works for The Clover Leaf company in Union Gap, said he once spoke to one of the boys about how the young man's car window got blown out. This was about a year ago.

"He said somebody took a shot at him," Edward Duffey said. "I said, 'Don't you want to get away from that? You're having a baby.' You'd think that would make them think, but it didn't seem to faze him at all."

An older woman who lives nearby said she's seen the neighborhood going downhill too and is now too afraid to talk to most of her neighbors, many of whom are renters who don't stay long.

The woman, who didn't want to be named, said she's seen groups of 20 or 30 youths and young men fighting in the street. Although none of her children lives with her, she takes care of her grandchildren during the day and tries to keep the gates closed to keep the stray dogs that roam the neighborhood out of her yard.

She heard the shots Sunday and was immediately reminded of the attack six days earlier two blocks down the street. The neighborhood, she said, is a disaster.

"I don't want to get involved," she said in Spanish. "If I need something (like an egg or flour), I'd rather not ask."

Alex Santillanes, an expert on gangs whose intervention program known as Barrios Unidos lost its funding earlier this year, said many victims and witnesses of gang crime are too afraid to cooperate because they fear retaliation.

He said there has been a notable increase in infighting among gang members right now, which is consistent with police accounts that the fatal shooting of a Yakima gang member last month was perpetrated by a man from the same gang.

Santillanes said he is convinced that better communication with the city's large Latino population and a renewed emphasis on intervention is the only way to combat gangs.

"People are talking," he said, "but the focus on getting the whole community involved isn't there."

Mayor Dave Edler said he was aware of the uptick in violence and feels frustrated at the seeming intractability of the gang problem.

He noted Yakima's leading role in the passage of new gang legislation last year and the efforts of the new Violent Crimes Task Force in tracking gang crime across jurisdictional lines.

The community group Citizens for Safe Communities, which helped lobby the Legislature to pass the gang bill and strengthen the penalties for eluding police, has begun focusing almost exclusively on gang crime, he said.

Yakima is still trying to live down its reputation as a drug trafficking hub, and gang crime has long been a problem.

"It's something that's become more the norm in our culture, driven by social issues we don't understand," Edler said, adding, "Clearly we've got more work to do."

* Chris Bristol can be reached at 577-7748 or at cbristol@yakimaherald.com.