Two 17-year-old gang members appeared in juvenile court Friday, where a judge found probable cause that they were involved in the death of 51-year-old Gabriela Reyes Dominguez, an officer manager shot through a plate glass window of a Burien chiropractic clinic on Wednesday.
Editor’s Note: Alexis Rodriguez-Herrera, 17, had been named as the possible shooter in an earlier version of this story based on information from law enforcement. Officials later identified another youth as the shooting suspect. Rodriguez was not charged.
Gang hand signs were displayed during an argument between an SUV full of teenagers and a 39-year-old man and his son just before gunfire erupted Wednesday afternoon, sending a bullet through a plate glass window and killing Gabriela Reyes Dominguez, the 51-year-old office manager of a chiropractic clinic in Burien, according to King County prosecutors.
Using surveillance footage from Highline High School, which is about four blocks from where nearly a dozen shots were fired at the 39-year-old man and his son, King County sheriff’s detectives were able to identify the four occupants of the gold SUV.
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Two of the four boys were arrested Wednesday evening and on Friday made their first court appearances at the Youth Services Center in Seattle.
During that hearing, a King County judge found probable cause to hold the suspected driver, Orlando Calderon-Garcia, on investigation of second-degree murder and drive-by shooting; The other youth, Alexis Rodriguez-Herrera, was ordered held on investigation of second-degree murder and unlawful possession of a firearm, according to prosecutors.
Both suspects are 17 years old, confirmed gang members and students at Highline, says the certification for determination of probable cause, which outlines the police case against the two teens. Rodriguez has a gang tattoo on his face and witnesses described him sitting on the ledge of the front, passenger-side window and firing multiple shots across the vehicle’s hood, the certification says.
Formal charges are expected to be filed Monday, said Whitney Keyes, a spokeswoman for Prosecutor Dan Satterberg.
The man who was targeted described himself to investigating officers as an “old school” gangster and he had numerous visible gang tattoos, the certification says. He also told police he had encountered the same males earlier in the afternoon at the high school — an assertion that was supported by the school’s video-surveillance footage.
Details of that encounter aren’t included in the certification. But four minutes before the shooting, the gold SUV — which is registered to Calderon’s mother — was seen leaving the school parking lot. The 39-year-old later told police that he got into an argument with the SUV’s occupants as he and his son walked on South 152nd Street, approaching First Avenue South.
The man told police that he told the teens “they needed to show more respect. He admitted that he then displayed gang signs toward the SUV and that the passenger then began shooting over the hood of the vehicle while sitting on the window,” says the certification, which notes the man is a member of a gang “engaged in a violent gang war” with the gang Rodriguez and Calderon belong to.
The man and his son were not shot, but the bullet that struck Reyes hit her in the chest and she died inside One Source Health Center at 15217 First Ave. S, says the certification.
The gold SUV was later seen on video-surveillance footage entering the parking lot of Rodriguez’s apartment complex 17 minutes after the shooting, and police found a 9-mm handgun hidden in the woods behind the complex that is believed to have been used in the shooting, the certification says.
Editor’s Note: One of the suspects, Alexis Rodriguez-Herrera, had been named as the possible shooter in an earlier version of this story based on information from law enforcement. Officials later identified another youth as the shooting suspect.