Oregon gang suspect charged with opening fire in busy WinCo parking lot in Tri-Cities
A drive-by shooting in a busy Kennewick grocery store parking lot started when two drivers got into a confrontation after a crash, say investigators.
A woman says she was trying to share her insurance information with Diego V. Ibarra, 20, when he shot at her truck three times outside WinCo last month, according to court documents.
Police booked Ibarra into the Benton County jail on Wednesday on a $100,000 arrest warrant on charges of drive-by shooting and illegal gun possession.
He pleaded innocent to the charges in Benton County Superior Court.
He was arrested with the help of Stanfield police and initially booked into the Umatilla County jail.
According to police, Ibarra has gang and drug ties and had been arrested several times in Stanfield and Hermiston. He splits his time between the two cities, said officials.
The investigation into the shooting started when a WinCo security guard watched a sedan and a pickup traveling through the parking lot. He saw the sedan’s driver point a silver handgun at the pickup and shoot three times at it.
Neither vehicles stopped after that.
Police discovered three shell casings in the parking lot.
When police looked at store’s security video, they saw the white Toyota Corolla with an Oregon license plate and the white Doge Ram pickup with Washington plates.
Hit-and-run incident
When police shared the video on Facebook, it led them to a Dodge Ram extended cab pickup that was parked at the Columbia Park East boat launch.
The driver said she had been following the Toyota because the car had backed into her pickup near the intersection of Highway 395 and Yelm Street, according to court documents.
She believed that he was going to pull over when the car turned into the parking lot.
“She said she heard five pops but was not sure what it was,” according to court records. “She said she did not see a firearm and did not think at the time that she was being shot at because it did not make sense to her.”
When the car stopped on Volland Street, she confronted the driver, described as a man in his 20s or early 30s with “poofy/wavy/thick dark hair,” a normal build, according to court records.
After she asked for his insurance information, he sped away.
She was able to get his license plate number, which was registered to Ibarra’s mother in Stanfield.
The Stanfield police chief recognized the car, and knew Ibarra normally drove it.
In the days around the shooting, he had been arrested for driving on a suspended license in the car, and the day after he had allegedly been shot at while in the car, said investigators.
He had prior felony convictions for bribing a witness and criminal mischief. The convictions prevent him from legally possessing a gun.