Gang member with violent Tri-Cities history, arrested for a murder in Mexico
A man with a long and violent history in the Tri-Cities is heading to Mexico to face homicide charges.
U.S. Marshals Service arrested Jesus G. Salas Rubio, 38, about 9:30 a.m. Friday in Spokane. He was wanted in connection to a homicide in Mexico.
Details were not immediately available on the investigation in Mexico but Salas Rubio was booked into the Spokane County jail and Mexican authorities were notified that he is in custody.
The U.S. Marshals’ Pacific Northwest Violent Offender Task Force worked with the Spokane County Sheriff’s Office Major Crimes Unit, the Spokane Police Department and the Washington state Department of Corrections to make the arrest, said officials.
Salas Rubio has been a suspect in several Tri-Cities shootings and other crimes dating back more than a decade.
Tri-Cities shootings and assaults
Most recently, Salas Rubio pleaded guilty to third-degree assault and illegally possessing a gun in 2019.
That came after he shot a man twice in the arm during a confrontation outside the Baymont Inn and Suites in Kennewick in January 2018.
When police tried to arrest him, he ran into Zintel Canyon, sparking a very public, hours-long search.
Salas Rubio, whom local police say is a gang member, was sentenced to nine years in prison for that crime.
In 2015, he was sentenced to a year and eight months for drug possession with the intent to deliver them in Benton County.
Three years earlier, he was sentenced to about 3 1/2 years in prison after pleading guilty to second-degree assault with a deadly weapon for shooting at a woman in Pasco in April 2012.
It’s not clear why Salas Rubio targeted the 42-year-old woman he met at a friend’s house. He later followed her car and fired a shot. She ducked and sped off.
In 2010, he lured a man to a storage unit, hit him with a club and stole his wallet. The victim told police he had given Salas Rubio a ride a week earlier and found $100 cash in his car. Salas Rubio claimed he lost the money and Doyle refused to return it.
Salas Rubio pleaded guilty to second-degree robbery and was sentenced to a year and a day in prison.