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If you’re going to order a drive-by shooting, at least make sure you target the right house. On July 30, Yakima County Superior Court Judge Jeff Swan sentenced Manuel Alejandro Duran-Martinez to 18 months in prison for hatching the plot.
The neighbor’s house
When 25-year-old Manuel Alejandro Duran-Martinez wanted to send a lead engraved message to “a gang member,” he sent his homies to do it. He also gave them the keys to his car.
It’s not clear if he gave them the wrong address or they simply shot up the wrong house. Three times. They critically injured a snow blower.
Local reports note that the Grandview, Washington, resident was originally charged with three counts of drive-by shooting.
#4. When Flock cameras identify a vehicle on a 'hot list' using it's 'Vehicle Fingerprint® Technology,' the location data is instantly sent to law enforcement. Every new agency that buys Flock cameras expands this network, contributing to an Orwellian mass surveillance system. pic.twitter.com/R8N18ehL3w
— Jason Bassler (@JasonBassler1) July 29, 2024
He took the deal because he only had to plead guilty to one count. Since it was only one person he was trying to “warn,” that’s appropriate. Hitting the wrong house didn’t factor into the sentencing, one way or another.
Judge Swan was nice enough to rule that he can serve this sentence “together with an unrelated drunken driving and hit-and-run case in Grandview Municipal Court.” The judge followed sentencing guidelines for the house shooting.
At the hearing, he noted he could have gone as high as 20 months but didn’t think 15 was enough to get the defendant’s attention. The only thing he had going for him was a “lack of prior felony convictions.” He can’t use that one again.
Groundhog Day
According to the police report, the first call reporting shots fired came in around 11:10 p.m. February 2. Officers with the Grandview Police Department investigated the 1000 block of King Street, “did not find anything in the area and left.”
Nothing indicated a house being targeted for retribution. They knew it was really Groundhog Day because at 11:35 p.m. they were back for the same thing, at the same location. Almost.
The second call of shots fired had a witness attached to it, who told them “the gunshots sounded like they were coming from the east.” That put them on the trail to locate “14 9-mm shell casings in the 900 block of King Street.”
CU Boulder Police share data from Flock camera system https://t.co/6XdRUygeiD pic.twitter.com/3ACsRvzywN
— Longmont Times-Call (@TimesCall) July 5, 2024
The front door faced Euclid Road but the bullet riddled garage fronted King. It was still the wrong house. The gang member lives next door.
Inside the garage, “officers found a snowblower had been struck by a bullet.” After checking out the house, a witness in the area “spotted a car driving off at the time of the shootings.” Grandview happens to have one of those new FLOCK camera license plate readers. They quickly identified the vehicle and confirmed it was in the area at the right time.
Then, they got called for another round of gunfire at 3 a.m. They found nine more shell casings and more holes in the garage door. Duran-Martinez had a “beef” with the gang-banger next door. When they arrested him, “officers also found a shell casing by the car’s windshield wiper blades that were like the ones found at the shootings.” He “paid someone to drive his car over and shoot at the garage he said the gang member lived in.“
