TACOMA — A Tacoma-area candidate for Washington representative announced Friday her car was hit by gunfire in a road-rage incident in Tacoma.
Sharlett Mena, a Democrat, wrote on Twitter that she was followed and shot at while driving home from her campaign kickoff Wednesday.
“Everything seemed fine and normal, and it felt like a really great campaign kickoff with a lot of energy from the community,” Mena said in an interview with The News Tribune on Friday.
Mena is one of three candidates running for the 29th Legislative District, Position 2, seat. The other candidates are Melissa Knott, a Democrat, and David Figuracion, a Republican. The top two vote-getters in the Aug. 2 primary will move on to November’s general election. The 29th District encompasses parts of Tacoma, Lakewood, Parkland and south to Spanaway and Frederickson.
Mena wrote in her Twitter thread that she and her partner were driving home after dropping off a friend at their home after the event. They were headed down South Yakima Avenue in Tacoma, with Mena in the passenger seat, when several cars began speeding near them and harassing them, she said.
“There were cars that were going 60, 70, in what is a 30-mile-per-hour road. There was one car that hit us bumper to bumper. They felt like we weren’t going fast enough even though we were going the speed limit. And there was a second car that came over and cut us off and slammed on the brakes,” Mena told The News Tribune.
Mena said the other drivers started yelling through the window and wanted Mena and her partner to roll their windows down. A backseat passenger in one of the cars later pulled out a gun and fired a shot that hit the front of Mena’s car.
Mena said she and her partner drove home and filed a report with the Tacoma Police Department. A police spokesperson said the department received a report of a drive-by shooting in the 7400 block of South Wapato Street at 10:15 p.m. The vehicle tied to the incident sustained documented damage. No other details were immediately available.
Neither Mena nor her partner sustained physical injuries. Mena said she doesn’t believe they were specifically targeted.
“I don’t think this was targeted at all. This felt like a wrong place, wrong time incident,” Mena said told The News Tribune.
Mena said the incident proves anyone can be affected by gun violence.
“At the campaign kickoff, I was candidate Sharlett Mena, and I felt like in the car I was another member of the community who lives here, and I feel like this could have happened to anyone. It does happen to people all over the community, and I feel like folks, when I go knock on their doors, are really worried about this. It’s not uncommon to walk through a neighborhood and see bullets in someone’s windshield,” Mena said told The News Tribune.
Mena said in her tweet she is determined to keep communities safe and prevent gun violence:
“I think this is actually a really beautiful community. I don’t think this defines us, I don’t this is the most striking characteristic about the 29th, but I think it’s an epidemic that’s plaguing our district, the state, and the country at large and I think we can’t just continue to pretend that everything is okay. And I’m not saying people are, I’m saying we have to really show that with our actions…it’s one of the many responsibilities that a legislator has and it’s only further galvanizing me to get to Olympia and do this work.”
