Bill seeking to remove drive-by shootings from aggravated murder dies; Yakima officials happy

A bill that sought to remove fatal drive-by shootings from a list of aggravators that prompt life sentences without parole recently died in the state House.

Rep. Tarra Simmons, D-Bremerton, said she introduced HB 1692 because classifying fatal drive-by shootings as aggravated murder unfairly targeted African American gang members.

In 1995, fatal drive-by shootings were placed on the list of aggravators amid increasing gang violence.

Yakima County Prosecutor Joe Brusic said he was glad the bill died quickly.

Drive-by shootings are frequent in Yakima, and any efforts to reduce penalties for gang violence here would send the wrong message, he said.

Brusic said there are seven pending homicide cases that will be charged with the aggravator in Yakima County.

“This aggravator, in my opinion, supports public safety and clearly says if you are going to do this, we are going to charge you out with this aggravator,” Brusic said.

Drive-by shootings

Yakima sees more than its share of drive-by shootings.

Last June, Oscar Ricardo-Hondal-Lopez and his wife were looking for a home for sale in a southeast Yakima neighborhood when they were mistaken for gang members.

Gangsters from another car shot them, killing Hondal-Lopez and injuring his wife.

Two days earlier, and about 2 miles northwest, 35-year-old Jonathan Spear was working in his West Chestnut Avenue yard when he was struck in the back by shots fired from a passing car. Doctors do not think he’ll walk again.

Police say the shooting was random. Two suspects were arrested, neither with gang ties, said Yakima Police Chief Matt Murray.

There were at least five drive-by shootings in Yakima that month alone, he said.

The year before brought some alarming drive-by shootings involving younger victims.

An 11-year-old girl was shot in the 1200 block of South 11th Avenue in September 2020.

Charles Taylor, 14, was killed in a drive-by shooting in the 100 block of Willow Street that month as well. Police said he was a gang member.

An 11 year-old boy was shot twice and his 9-year-old sister once in July 2020, when their home in the 800 block of West Viola Avenue was sprayed with bullets twice within three days.

Men in a passing car fired shots into a group of people celebrating on the Fourth of July when the boy was shot the first time.

One house near the intersection of Union Street and Chestnut Avenue had been the target of 15 drive-by shootings between July and September in 2020, Murray said.

Murray cannot comprehend why any lawmaker would attempt such a bill given the incidents in Yakima.

“I just can’t understand why you’d devalue that — it’s an extremely heinous act,” he said. “I don’t know why a representative would want to do that.”

Racial profiling?

Simmons wrote an opinion published in The Seattle Times explaining her position on the bill.

She said the idea of the bill was brought to her by retired judge and former state Sen. Michael Heavy, who said drive-by shootings were added as aggravating factors to “target predominantly Black gangs in Tacoma and Seattle.”

First-degree murder typically carries a sentence of 20 to 30 years in prison. The aggravator prompts a life sentence without parole.

Simmons points to the case of Kimonti Carter as reason for removing fatal drive-by shootings from the list. Carter was sentenced to life without parole for the killing of Corey Pittman in 1997.

Carter had been involved in gangs since he was 11, and turned his life around after his conviction, Simmons said.

Carter started the Taking Education and Creating History (TEACH) program, which has been widely credited with improving race relations. Carter currently has no hope of leaving prison despite his redemption, Simmons said.

“This bill is not about softening Carter’s sentence. It’s about asking ourselves the hard questions. Are we a society that believes in redemption? Do we only believe in redemption for some kinds of people? How can we create justice without relying on vengeance?” Simmons said in the opinion.

Introducing the bill hasn’t been easy; Simmons said she’s received death threats.

Prosecutor Brusic said he doesn’t see how the aggravator constitutes racial inequality.

“I haven’t seen any evidence,” Brusic said. “Simmons said she had data showing it was racial profiling, but I haven’t seen it. I have no clue what she’s talking about.”

Chief Murray agrees.

“Either you commit a drive-by or not,” he said. “We don’t care what your race is.”

This bill came on the heels of several other approved bills that police say are inhibiting their ability to pursue and arrest suspects.

The bills were a response to the Black Lives Matter movement that played out across the country over police brutally and the May 25, 2020, death of George Floyd, 46, at the hands of Minneapolis police officers.

Those bills took effect last summer and made sweeping changes in how police are supposed to handle incidents. For example, police now need probable cause rather than reasonable suspicion to detain a suspect, and no-knock warrants are no longer allowed, just to name two.

Murray said officers recently responded to a call about a gang member shooting into a crowd at a party.

He said officers couldn’t detain anyone due to a lack of probable cause.

“So the shooters just run away from us,” he said. “That’s the law. Unless someone steps out and says: ‘That guy right there shot at me,’ you can’t stop them.”

Some Republican lawmakers say the changes have placed suspect rights ahead of victim rights. They recently unveiled their Safe Washington package, a series of bills intended to improve and strengthen law enforcement in several areas.