Cold reality of crime: Ice cream vendor shot

Somebody shot the "paleta" man as he pedaled around his Yakima neighborhood Saturday afternoon.

Sixty-two-year-old Pedro Esteves Lopez says he was riding his ice cream bicycle cart through an alley in the 1100 block of Folsom Avenue, not far from Milroy Park, when he heard a bang and felt a pain behind his left calf.

"I don't know what happened. I didn't see anybody," Esteves said Sunday afternoon while lying on a mattress on the floor of his son's apartment. "I sold only three paletas."

When he isn't packing cherries, the small man from the Mexican state of Oaxaca hawks popular fruit ice cream "paleta" bars for $1.

But after Saturday's shooting, he probably won't be working at either job for another week or two. He said doctors at Yakima Regional Medical and Cardiac Center told him to expect a full recovery because the bullet missed his bones.

Esteves -- who rents a room by himself at the home of a family he knows -- didn't call for help right away.

He said somebody from the neighborhood who heard the gunshot took him into their home and cleaned the wound with rubbing alcohol.

After more than an hour, another friend took him to the hospital because the pain was so bad.

Officials there reported the incident to police, who are investigating the shooting.

"The way it appears, we don't have any idea whether he was a target or just got hit by a random, stray bullet," said patrol Sgt. Tony Bennett, who turned over the case to detectives.

Esteves might be the latest victim of suspected gang shootings that have injured people who appear to be innocent bystanders.

In June, a 13-year-old Yakima girl was hit in the abdomen when shots were fired into her home in the 1100 block of Roosevelt Avenue.

Six days later in the same neighborhood, a 23-year-old woman visiting from Michigan was struck in the leg by a bullet during a nearby gang fight.

And within the past two weeks, stray bullets left two innocent bystanders in the Lower Valley with minor injuries.

In Esteves' neighborhood, in the 700 block of North Sixth Avenue, residents say they've grown used to the gunfire.

"Things are getting uglier here," said Christina Bautista, whose home a few doors down has been shot at multiple times since her family moved here in 1989. "I remember we threw ourselves down on the floor, my children laid down in the closet to hide.

"We started being afraid after that."

Esteves, who moved here from Mexico two years ago, said he's never thought it would be dangerous riding a bicycle cart around town.

"I didn't imagine something like this accident could happen," he said glancing at the small bandage on his leg. "I don't have any enemies. I don't drink or go to parties or dances."

A few blocks away, another paleta seller, Pascual Guerrero, was surprised to hear about Saturday's shooting.

"What I don't understand," the 27-year-old said, "is why anybody would go after people who don't have anything to do with gangs or crime."

* Melissa Sánchez can be reached at 509-577-7675 or msanchez@yakimaherald.com.