Spokane7
65°
September 20, 2011 in City, Region
2 men wounded in shooting near Moses Lake
MOSES LAKE, Wash. — Two men were shot about 2 a.m. today in the gravel parking lot of a wildlife access area near Moses Lake.
Grant County Undersheriff Dave Ponozzo says deputies responded to a report of gunshots and found the victims. They’ve been taken to Samaritan Hospital in Moses Lake, condition unknown.
Ponozzo says the men don’t appear to be hunters and it’s unknown what they were doing in the parking lot. There was no vehicle when they were found.
Detectives are searching the parking lot for evidence and waiting to talk to the victims to determine the motive for the shooting and identify a suspect.
© Copyright 2011 Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
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RedCedar on September 20 at 9:45 a.m.
Of course we aren’t given the names of the men involved, lest we jump to conclusions about their ethnicity and from that start speculating about open gang warfare in the agricultural basin of central Washington. It just occurs to me that there have been a lot of shootings and more than a couple dead bodies in the Tri-Cities / Yakima / Wenatchee stretch of the Columbia basin this summer, and when the names are released, they tend to make me doubt that it was a couple of drunken Swedish loggers arguing over a girl in a bar.
How about a real in-depth investigation into organized crime in Columbia basin, and in particular the operations of Mexican drug cartels in our area? Three guys don’t just go out for a ride to a parking lot in the boonies at 2 AM to look at the stars any more than Jimmy Hoffa decides to go for a swim in the East River.
WillyPeter on September 20 at 9:53 a.m.
Excellent post RedCedar………
misjustice on September 20 at 12:17 p.m.
It must be exhausting, rushing and jumping to conclusions…
johnclarke on September 20 at 12:43 p.m.
So, my only question is where are these Swedish girls hanging out ?
Red Cedar, perhaps you could produce some statistics that back up your statement about “a lot of shootings”. Would you say that there are more incidents than say, Spokane ? Are you saying that Mexican cartels are behind all this ?
Ok, that was 3 questions.
RedCedar on September 20 at 1:35 p.m.
Well, John, the answer to your first question, of course, is “Ballard”.
As for the rest, that’s what I’d like an investigative reporter to investigate. All I have is an “it seems to me”, and a few stories that odds and ends of people have told me. There could be nothing to it. I’m not an investigative reporter. But I do know that every time I’ve read the name of the victim and suspect in any shooting anywhere along the Columbia river in the past couple years, they’ve always been Hispanic. Could just be a lot of Hispanic people in the area. Could be selective reading on my part. I’m not racist enough to say “those people” are by nature hot-blooded and prone to shooting each other over nothing. It’s more like if I was in Chicago in the 1930s and noticed a lot of Italian names in the police blotter.
Three (or more) people driving out to a remote area at 2 AM and leaving two of them shot is not a crime of passion or a result of drunken stupidity. Maybe it’s not part of organized crime, but maybe it is.
Coffee on September 20 at 2:29 p.m.
http://www.kndo.com/story/10371743/mexican-drug-cartels-operating-in-inland-northwest?redirected=true
RedCedar on September 20 at 4:32 p.m.
…the Inland Northwest has become a distribution hub for the Mexican drug trafficking organizations, citing a case in which more than 100 members of an organization, based out of Mexico, were arrested.
Say it ain’t so, Coffee! Say it ain’t so!
jimvw2 on September 20 at 11:15 p.m.
John,
ReCedar might be a bigot. Regardless, he’s right about drugs moving up fom as far away as Central America through the Columbia Basin.
The Tri-Cities newspaper and the Yakima Herald Tribune have been reporting on this connection for years. There has been more than one joint task force roundup of dealers in the Basin, and the Grant County Sheriff has publicly acknowledged that Mexican drug runners have been using the Basin’s migrant worker community as camoflage for years.
There’s no conspiracy to conceal anything here. It’s police policy not toi release the names of shooting victims until the families are notified. Assuming they are Hispanic is just that, an assumptionM
Maybe RedCedar could suppress his racist sentiments until more details are actually released.
jimvw2 on September 20 at 11:20 p.m.
P.S. Where shooting victims survive it may be that the police don’t want to reveal to assailants the names of their intended victims lest their families be targeted. The victims might also be informants or undercover DEA. There are a lot of reasons police may have for not releasing more info.