Monday, October 12, 2009

Yakima police look at ties between two gang slayings

Yakima police look at ties between two gang slayings

By MARK MOREY
Yakima Herald-Republic

YAKIMA, Wash. -- Investigators say they are considering whether Yakima's two most recent gang-related homicides are related.

The victim in Saturday's incident was 20-year-old Nicholas J. Jimenez of Yakima, police said Monday.

He was shot once in the torso and died on arrival at Yakima Regional Medical and Cardiac Center, authorities said.

The shooting happened about 1:20 a.m. in an alley behind a home in the 700 block of North Fourth Avenue.

Yakima police Sgt. Scot Levno said friends of homicide victim Yorbane Ortiz, who was fatally shot Sept. 29 in Yakima, were attending a party at the Fourth Avenue house.

Ortiz's funeral was held recently.

The 17-year-old was killed while walking in the area of North Fifth Avenue and Willow Street. Police say someone in a passing car shot him.

The circumstances of the Jimenez shooting remain under investigation.

Levno said he was apparently shot at relatively close range by someone with a pistol, but detectives have few details beyond that.

"There was nobody there at this party who claimed to see or know anything," Levno said, describing the lack of cooperation as a growing trend in gang-related crime over the past few years.

Also injured in the Saturday shooting was a 16-year-old boy from Utah.

Levno said the boy was a Yakima native who had returned for Ortiz's funeral.

He was treated for gunshot wounds to the legs and released from a Yakima hospital soon after the incident, Levno said.

Including this morning's discovery of a woman shot numerous times outside of Sunnyside, 18 homicides have been reported across Yakima County this year.

That matches the total count for 2008.


http://www.yakima-herald.com/stories/2009/10/12/yakima-police-look-at-ties-between-two-gang-slayings

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