The grave marker for a Pasco man gunned down in April was desecrated over the weekend with gang graffiti, burned flowers and urine.
Late Monday, Eutimio Vivero-Martinez's marker at Cityview Cemetery in Pasco still had a light blue tint from the spray paint. His son, Francisco Vivero of Pasco, earlier attempted to remove all traces of the destruction.
Vivero-Martinez, 38, died April 26 during a gang clash on 14th Avenue.
Convicted killer Christopher Ruesga, 17, was sentenced Oct. 9 to 15 years in prison. Ruesga is a member of the Sureo gang, which associates with the color blue.
Vivero-Martinez's home had reportedly been hit by shotgun blasts just hours before he was killed. He was with two known Norteo members when their group walked into Sureo territory and approached Ruesga and his friends.
Maria Vivero Cruz said Monday that her entire family is upset with the desecration of her brother's grave marker and the outcome of the criminal case.
Cruz said her father, Eutimio Vivero, was at the cemetery Friday night to take flowers to the adjacent markers for his sons Eutimio and Alberto. He returned Sunday to reportedly find the gang signs in blue paint, urine in a flower vase and both flowers and a red bandana burned on the stone.
Cruz said the family is tired of the retribution and called Pasco police about the vandalism.
"I am frustrated and hurting for my mom. She feels like she can't even let my brother rest because they're destroying him. They're messing with him," she said. "He's so innocent right now, and they can't even let him rest."
She questioned why some have nothing else to do but go out and destroy other people's property. It is "getting ugly with gangs" in the Tri-Cities, and people cannot walk the streets or enjoy time in the outdoors without worrying about what could happen, she said.
Cruz said she wants to write the Washington Legislature because she feels the state is too lenient on punishment for killers. The law actually discourages the people and gives no hope to those who have suffered a loss, she said.
"If you want to act like an adult you're going to get treated like an adult. We want the laws strong and heavy on kids so they don't go back and do what they're doing now," said Cruz, who is angered that Ruesga can return to society once he's served his time. "We lost and he gains a life. It's not fair, it's not fair at all."
http://www.thenewstribune.com/news/northwest/story/922432.html
Showing posts with label washington. Show all posts
Showing posts with label washington. Show all posts
Wednesday, October 21, 2009
Yakima murder suspect arrested in Tacoma
YAKIMA, Wash. -- Police are sometimes stymied in crime investigations when witnesses are unwlling to come forward and speak up, but that wasn’t the case in a homicide investigation Tuesday.
Yakima detectives got their first lead from surveillance video taken by a security camera near where Shelly Kinter’s nude body was found about 5 a.m. in an alley off Chestnut Avenue between Sixth and Seventh streets.
Her body had been run over, but Sgt. Scot Levno said investigators believe that happened after she had been killed.
The video showed a black Dodge Avenger, and by midday detectives were inspecting just such a car in the parking lot at Connections, an apartment complex in the 100 block of South Naches Avenue for people recovering from substance abuse. Kinter, 42, lived in a second-floor unit there.
As detectives were preparing to impound the car, some Connections residents gathered in the parking lot hollered out that another black Dodge with a cracked windshield was driving past and had been seen going by earlier.
Police located another black Avenger a few minutes later at the 7-Eleven store on Yakima Avenue and arrested the driver. The car had front-end damage above the passenger-side headlight and the windshield was shattered on the driver’s side.
Levno said that car matched what was seen on the surveillance video. “We found blood on the driver and in the passenger compartment, and on the undercarriage of the car,” he said.
The suspect, 20-year-old Aaron Leroy Briden from Tacoma, was booked into the Yakima County jail on a charge of first-degree murder, according to a police news release.
The news release said Kinter died “from apparent trauma to the head and body.” Yakima County Coroner Jack Hawkins said an autopsy will be done today.
Information on the Web site Classmates.com lists a Shelly Kinter as a 1985 graduate of Davis High School.
A man who lives at Connections, which is operated by Triumph Treatment Services, said Kinter was “just a really mellow person; she never did anybody no harm at all.”
“She was a ray of sunshine,” said a woman smoking a cigarette in the Connections parking lot.
At one point a woman drove up to the group and asked if the woman who had been killed was Shelly, and then broke into sobs.
“She was trying to get her life straightened out, and she was doing a good job,” said the woman, who declined to give her name but said she became friends with Kinter at the free weekly meals a church group provides for homeless and needy people in the neighborhood. The woman is a volunteer who helps at the Friday meals.
Yakima detectives got their first lead from surveillance video taken by a security camera near where Shelly Kinter’s nude body was found about 5 a.m. in an alley off Chestnut Avenue between Sixth and Seventh streets.
Her body had been run over, but Sgt. Scot Levno said investigators believe that happened after she had been killed.
The video showed a black Dodge Avenger, and by midday detectives were inspecting just such a car in the parking lot at Connections, an apartment complex in the 100 block of South Naches Avenue for people recovering from substance abuse. Kinter, 42, lived in a second-floor unit there.
As detectives were preparing to impound the car, some Connections residents gathered in the parking lot hollered out that another black Dodge with a cracked windshield was driving past and had been seen going by earlier.
Police located another black Avenger a few minutes later at the 7-Eleven store on Yakima Avenue and arrested the driver. The car had front-end damage above the passenger-side headlight and the windshield was shattered on the driver’s side.
Levno said that car matched what was seen on the surveillance video. “We found blood on the driver and in the passenger compartment, and on the undercarriage of the car,” he said.
The suspect, 20-year-old Aaron Leroy Briden from Tacoma, was booked into the Yakima County jail on a charge of first-degree murder, according to a police news release.
The news release said Kinter died “from apparent trauma to the head and body.” Yakima County Coroner Jack Hawkins said an autopsy will be done today.
Information on the Web site Classmates.com lists a Shelly Kinter as a 1985 graduate of Davis High School.
A man who lives at Connections, which is operated by Triumph Treatment Services, said Kinter was “just a really mellow person; she never did anybody no harm at all.”
“She was a ray of sunshine,” said a woman smoking a cigarette in the Connections parking lot.
At one point a woman drove up to the group and asked if the woman who had been killed was Shelly, and then broke into sobs.
“She was trying to get her life straightened out, and she was doing a good job,” said the woman, who declined to give her name but said she became friends with Kinter at the free weekly meals a church group provides for homeless and needy people in the neighborhood. The woman is a volunteer who helps at the Friday meals.
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