A red tide of violence has engulfed the Rainier Valley for the past two and a half weeks, leaving seven people dead and eight seriously injured.
The bloodshed started with a double shooting on Thursday, Sept. 21 when two cars came to a stop next to one another at the intersection of 51st Avenue South and Rainier Avenue South. Angry words were exchanged between two men driving a white, late-model Honda Prelude and the occupant, or occupants, of a dark gray 1990s Cadillac sedan. Soon, gunfire erupted from the Caddy, and both cars took off. Moments later the Honda crashed to a stop near South Director Street: the driver, 26-year-old Jared Leroy Lee, was dead from a gunshot wound to the back and his passenger, also 26, was hospitalized with bullet holes in his abdomen.
Seattle Police Department representative Rich Pruitt noted "no known motive or connection to gang fighting" when speaking of the incident. Police representative Sean Whitcomb added that the department has yet to arrest a suspect in the murder/assault.
"We're vigorously investigating," Whitcomb asserted.
Suspicious death
Only two days after the fatal shooting on Rainier Avenue, another man was found dead after a disturbance a couple drew in some witnesses and spiraled out of control. According to Whitcomb, Ro Chham, age 34, was fighting with his girlfriend around noon at her Rainier Avenue South apartment when 36-year-old Toeur Cheth intervened.
The woman told investigating officers that Chham punched Cheth several times in the chest, but no weapon was involved. She also said that her enraged boyfriend punched her in the mouth before leaving the scene. The woman said Cheth went to bed around 10 p.m., but when she tried to wake him shortly before 2 p.m. he was unresponsive.
The woman dialed 911, and Seattle Fire Department officials arrived, performing CPR. Their efforts were deemed futile, and Cheth was declared dead with apparent bruising to his chest and neck.
According to Whitcomb and the King County Medical Examiners Office, Cheth's cause of death is still under investigation, but Chham is currently in custody.
Domestic murder
Two days clicked by in the Valley, and another domestic violence case got tragically out of hand. According to documents filed by King County Senior Deputy Prosecuting Attorney Donald Raz, 27-year-old Raul Perez-Hernandez is charged with the first-degree murder of his estranged wife's brother, Luis Angel Penalosa-Guillen.
Just before 1 a.m. on Monday, Sept. 25, Perez-Hernandez crashed the birthday party of his soon-to-be-ex wife, Fabiola Guillen. She separated from him because of several past domestic violence incidents and obtained a temporary protection order filed at the beginning of the month against her violent husband. The order stipulates that Perez-Hernandez cannot come within 500 feet of Guillen
The early morning gathering at an East Fir Street apartment consisted primarily of relatives. Once Perez-Hernandez was inside, he assaulted and threatened Guillen and her family and friends. The confrontation came to a head when Perez-Hernandez armed himself with a knife and charged for Guillen. Several members of the party, including Guillen's brother, subdued Perez-Hernandez, disarmed him, and escorted him from the apartment, but they did not call the police.
About three hours later, Guillen returned home to her Martin Luther King Jr. Way South apartment that she used to share with Perez-Hernandez but was currently sharing with her brother. When she unlocked the front door, Guillen found her brother lying dead on the floor just inside the apartment building covered in blood with obvious stab wounds. She retreated to a neighbor's apartment and called 911.
Investigating officers found no signs of forced entry but spotted a blood trail on the walkway leading away from the scene of the crime and out of the apartment complex. Detectives interviewed party members, including Perez-Hernandez' maternal uncle, David Hernandez Molina. In his statement, Molina said he was involved with disarming Perez-Hernandez. Molina said that his nephew showed up at his apartment between 4 and 5 a.m. stating he needed a ride out of town because he just stabbed his brother-in-law.
Molina also noticed Perez-Hernandez was bleeding from a large cut on his right pinky and a smaller one on his left hand. Perez-Hernandez revealed to Molina that he unlocked the apartment with a key and attacked his brother-in-law while he slept, stabbing him three times. However, in addition to the knife wounds, King County Medical Examiner Dr. Aldo Fusaro determined Penalosa-Guillen's death was also caused by blunt trauma to the head.
Prosecutor Raz filed for a $1 million bail, stating that Perez-Hernandez fled the crime scene and is attempting to go to Mexico. Raz deemed Perez-Hernandez "an extreme danger not only to family members but likely to anyone who attempts to impede his flight from this country."
Drugs and guns
One day later, on Sept. 26, a man was shot five times at close range during an alleged drug deal gone bad at a 49th Avenue South apartment, according to South Precinct crime prevention coordinator Mark Solomon. The incident was brought to light after several 911 callers reported hearing shots fired near the intersection of 49th Avenue South and South Kenyon Street.
In court documents filed on Oct. 5 by King County Deputy Prosecuting Attorney Ian Goodhew, officers found 23-year-old Gregory Wayne Jackson lying severely wounded on the cement carport-floor of the apartment complex. Weapons drawn, officers began sweeping the area for suspects, and when they asked the victim who shot him just before he was transported to Harborview Medical Center in critical condition, Jackson said "Rob."
Not long afterward Robert Lewis Farmer Jr., age 31, popped up from behind a short wall and asked, "what's going on?" He was immediately taken into custody, and during questioning said he was "smoking some sherm with his friend Goldie [a.k.a. Jackson]." When detectives told Farmer that Jackson had been shot five times in the chest and was in critical condition, Farmer became visibly upset and eventually "admitted he must have shot him because he was tweaked out on sherm." Sherm is marijuana soaked in phencyclidine, a synthetic chemical commonly known as PCP that's classed as an associative anesthetic, according to the drug information website The Vaults of Erowid.
While initially denying it, Farmer admitted to owning the weapon, a 40-caliber Taurus handgun that was recovered at the scene a few feet from him, it's chambers empty. Farmer said he bought the gun "off a crack head on the street."
Living on 23rd Avenue South, Farmer is a three time convicted felon: residential burglary in 2001, a firearms violation in 2004 and a drug violation in the same year. Prosecutor Goodhew requested a bail of $250,000 for Farmer.
More mayhem
Three days after the drug-induced shooting, crime prevention coordinator Solomon reported a vehicle traveling at a high rate of speed crashed and rolled over on the 8400 block of Seward Park Avenue South. Four people were injured in the accident.
The following day on Sept. 30, a similar accident occurred with much deadlier results when four young sailors with the USS Abraham Lincoln smashed into a series of utility and traffic poles near the intersection of 57th Avenue South and Rainier Avenue South. All four were quickly killed.
After the wrecks, almost a week went by devoid of extreme violence, but then a man in his late 20s was shot in the face in the basement of a home along the 8600 block of Beacon Avenue South, according to police spokeswoman Debra Brown. Both the victim and the suspect were allegedly downstairs when the 1:30 a.m. shooting occurred. The police department's gang unit is currently investigating the incident.
The gang unit is also investigating an Oct. 5, 7 p.m. shooting of a teenage boy on the 5900 block of 39th Avenue South. After he was shot in the buttocks and hand, the boy, age 17 or 18, ran two blocks to an apartment building where someone dialed 911. In each incident both victims were hospitalized with serious, but non-life threatening, gunshot wounds.
Finally, on Sunday, Oct. 8, a man allegedly stabbed a 38-year-old woman twice in the torso while in a Martin Luther King Jr. Way South apartment. The woman reported her assault around 5:30 p.m., and the man fled in his car, crashing it a few minutes later into a utility pole and a tire store on the 3300 block of MLK. Both the man and woman were listed in serious condition and taken to Harborview Medical Center.
Erik Hansen may be reached by calling 206-461-1311 or e-mailing editor@sdistrictjournal.com.[[In-content Ad]]
