Downtown shooting suspect also charged in drug ring

One of 39 suspects indicted Thursday on federal drug charges now faces allegations of attempted murder in a gang-related shooting that briefly closed a downtown Spokane music venue in February 2013.

An informant told police that Stafone Fuentes, 29, fired the .38-caliber rounds that struck two men sitting in a car near the Knitting Factory on Feb. 18, 2013. Under cover of a fight in the venue’s parking lot following a joint Valentine’s Day and birthday party, Fuentes walked up to the window of the vehicle and shot the driver in the arm and stomach, according to the informant.

A passenger in the car also received a gunshot wound. Both men were treated and released from a hospital. The driver told police he and Fuentes had argued about a woman prior to the shooting.

Following the shooting, Spokane police shuttered the Knitting Factory due to increasing episodes of violence at and near the venue. The city reopened the concert hall within a few days.

Fuentes was charged with and acquitted of assault stemming from a November 2011 incident at a Spokane motel during which Jose J. “Junior” Solis, a 21-year-old rapper from Moses Lake, was killed.

The most recent shooting occurred roughly three months after Fuentes’ acquittal.

Fuentes was also among the more than three dozen named defendants facing federal drug charges after law enforcement searched at least a dozen Spokane-area residences early Thursday. According to investigators, Fuentes and the other defendants sold Ecstasy, oxycodone, methamphetamine and PCP in a drug ring that spanned at least four states.

The informant, who is not named in court documents, told police Fuentes laughed as he admitted to the shooting a few hours later. Fuentes called his gun “Baby” and said he “felt like a god” after the shooting, the informant told police.

A judge set Fuentes’ bond at $250,000 on the attempted murder charge Friday. He has been in Spokane County Jail since early February on other drug-related charges, according to jail records.

Cierra White, 19, also faces charges of conspiracy to commit first-degree murder stemming from the February 2013 shooting, according to Spokane police. She is also among the 39 defendants named in the federal drug case.