Juvenile shot in foot last week in suspected gang shooting, shooter remains at large

A 16-year-old gang member had been threatening another youth for weeks before he and a car full of other gang members fired numerous shots at a home near Spokane’s Garland District, injuring one young man in the foot, documents said.

The shooter remains at large.

Police responded to the 3200 block of N. Lincoln St. just after 8:30 p.m. on March 30 after reports of a drive-by shooting, according to a search warrant filed in Spokane Count Superior Court this week.

A juvenile male told police a 16-year-old he knows had obtained a handgun a few months ago. He had fired the gun near Broadway Food in January while showing the young man the gun, the witness told police.

The 16-year-old told the boy he is a “2100 deuce ave crip” and that there were “bodies” on the gun, according to a search warrant. Not long after, the 16-year-old showed the boy another gun. The boy said the gang member had been acting differently since coming into possession of the two guns, he told police according to court documents.

The two boys got into an argument over a girl the day before the shooting, the boy told police. The day of the shooting, the boy was at a friend’s Lincoln Street home when he talked to the 16-year-old on the phone. The 16-year-old threatened to kill him, he told police.

The boy stayed at his friend’s house with three other juveniles, his friend’s mother and another adult for the rest of the day. That night he saw a sedan slowly drive by the house then turn around and pass again a few minutes later.

That’s when people in the car, whom the boy believes to be gang members, fired about five rounds at the house, he told police. Another boy was shot in the foot.

The injured boy dove for cover, he told police, then he felt his leg go numb.

The first boy called 911. While on the phone with police, he heard tires squealing and then another 10 to 15 gunshots, he told police. A neighbor told police she saw a man wearing a dark hoodie hop out of the back right seat and fire about seven rounds at the house, according to the search warrant.

Police arrived to find the injured boy with a makeshift tourniquet on his leg and a visible bullet wound.

The injured boy was taken to the hospital. Police have yet to arrest anyone in connection to the shooting.

Just a few days later on Sunday, another juvenile male received life-threatening injuries in a likely gang-related drive-by shooting, police said. The shooter in that incident also remains at large as of Wednesday afternoon, police said.

Shootings have been on the rise in recent years, said Julie Humphreys, a spokesperson for the Spokane Police Department.

There were 52 shootings in 2019, 91 in 2020 and 151 in 2021.

In the first three months of 2022, there were 40 shootings, Humphreys said, with 18 of those classified as drive-by, up from 10 drive-by shooting during the same time period last year.