An 18-year-old Vancouver man faces three counts of first-degree assault following a shooting in Camas on Sunday.
Enrique J. Espinoza-Mendoza appeared in Clark County Superior Court on Thursday wearing a suicide smock. Court deputies allowed Espinoza-Mendoza to sit in a chair while his case was being heard, after he shuffled into the courtroom and announced he didn’t feel well.
The teenager was arrested on suspicion of the assault charges as well as unlawful possession of a firearm.
Judge Suzan Clark set Espinoza-Mendoza’s bail at $75,000, agreeing with the prosecution that the allegations raised concerns about community safety.
Camas police officers were dispatched to reports of shots fired in the 1800 block of Northwest Astor Court shortly after midnight.
According to a probable cause affidavit, several residents in the area called 911 to report hearing gunfire. One of the callers told police they heard two to three shots and then two vehicles speed away in front of their home.
Arriving officers found shattered tinted glass in the road near parked cars. They also found two shell casings and one live round in the street nearby, according to the affidavit.
While on scene, Sgt. Scot Boyles, who wrote the affidavit, spoke with a woman who had called 911 about the shooting. She said Espinoza-Mendoza pistol whipped her friend and fired two rounds, striking the van she was in at the time, according to the affidavit.
The woman initially refused to identify herself to police, but called by noon that day offering to help.
Boyles also separately interviewed Juliette Whitaker Green and Shayla Famalaro, witnesses who told identical stories. They said they were leaving a party in Camas when Espinoza-Mendoza pulled up in a car, pulled out a gun and stuck it in the face of Matt Cash, who they’d come there with, according to the affidavit.
There was a struggle and Green was unintentionally hit in the forehead, the women said. Green then tried to escape by driving away, and Espinoza-Mendoza fired a round at a van occupied by her, Famalaro and Cash. The round struck the frame of the vehicle and shattered a window, according to the affidavit.
Police caught up with Espinoza-Mendoza at his mother’s house in Vancouver on Wednesday. He said he had consumed alcohol and Xanax on the night of the shooting and “was having a hard time remembering exactly what happened,” the affidavit says.
“(Espinoza-Mendoza) told me he didn’t remember aiming the gun at anyone or anything in particular but admitted to grabbing it and having it with him during the fight with Cash,” the affidavit says.
Police asked to search Espinoza-Mendoza’s room and found a handgun under a mattress. Espinoza-Mendoza said the gun was his and the same one used in the Camas shooting.
The arraignment in the case was set for July 12.
