City barricades shooting-prone road

SUNNYSIDE, Wash. – In an otherwise tranquil canal bank neighborhood, a house known for drive-by shootings and gang members is empty.

Yellow tape blocks the porch. A “Posted Substandard” notice hangs on the door. Concrete barricades prevent through traffic on the nearby streets.

“They needed to do that years ago,” said a woman who lives across the canal from the house where gunfire would so often interrupt her sleep.

A history of problems at 808 W. Edison Ave., including two drive-by shootings last month, have prompted the city of Sunnyside, Wash., and police to take a particularly aggressive stance toward the property, a single-story home so pocked with bullet holes, detectives struggled to distinguish new from old.

A few months before the shootings, the city and police seized an opportunity to include the house in the planned annexation of the nearby former Monson feedlot. Previously, the house was in unincorporated Yakima County. Now, it’s in city limits, giving police more authority to take action.

“The whole point here is we’re done with gangs,” said Sunnyside Deputy Police Chief Phil Schenck. “We’re going to bring all of our available tools to the table.”

Using annexation and road blocks to combat gangs are new, according to Mike Painter, director of professional services for the Washington Association of Sheriffs and Police Chiefs.

“I have not heard of any city ever doing anything like that,” said Painter, former police chief of the city of Kent. “Kudos to them for being creative.”

Road barricades have some precedence elsewhere. In 1990, Los Angeles police created dead-end streets for two years in a 10-block area that had experienced a rash of gang homicides. The theory was that drive-bys would go down. The so-called “Operation Cul de Sac” worked almost immediately, according to a 1998 U.S. Department of Justice research brief. Homicides in the area went from seven to only one in the two years following, but when police pulled the barricades, homicides returned to previous levels.

Troubled property

Sunnyside’s annexation tactic was somewhat opportunistic. In 2007, the city finalized its purchase of the Monson feedlot west of town, extended sewer and water lines to the property and began the process of annexation to market the property for commercial or retail development.

Coincidentally, between the city and the old feedlots sits the house at 808 W. Edison, a historically troublesome property for law enforcement. In the past four years, the Yakima County Sheriff’s Office made 10 weapons-related calls, almost all involving gunfire.

Bullets struck the house so frequently, detectives had to work with the residents to determine which holes were recent.

“I don’t know how they figured out which were old bullet holes and which were new bullet holes,” said Stew Graham, detective chief for the sheriff’s office.

Sheriff’s deputies tried aggressive techniques, too, Graham said. The county-led Violent Crimes Task Force, which once included a Sunnyside officer, often targeted the house with arrest and search warrants.

Graham had never heard of a city annexing for crime-fighting authority but liked the idea. City officers often are closer to houses right outside their limits than sheriff’s deputies and can respond more quickly.

“If Sunnyside and Sunnyside PD were seeing a significant amount of crime right around their city limits, then yes, it makes sense for them to annex,” Graham said.

The City Council formally approved the annexation in March.

Code enforcement

The city didn’t take action at the house right away after the annexation.

Then, on June 17 and June 24, drive-by shootings at the house interrupted the early morning hours. Detectives believe the residents returned fire at the passing cars, Schenck said. Nobody was hurt, but children were inside, police said.

During one of their searches following the incident, police brought along code enforcement officers. The inspectors found several structural problems – broken rafters, sloping floors, cracked ceilings and a total of 21 bullet holes that could affect wiring, Ayling said.

Ayling said the deficiencies were enough to justify a “substandard” declaration, which means the house must be fixed before anyone can live there. Before the shootings, code enforcement officers weren’t concerned about the house. The residents had a few old vehicles in the yard but kept the grass and weeds in check, Ayling said.

Meanwhile, Sunnyside public works crews set concrete barriers across West Edison Road and Northwest Crescent Road, just across the canal to the south, to prevent through traffic and quick getaways after drive-bys.

“If you’re going to turn around in the person’s driveway you’re going to shoot at, it’s going to be a little dangerous,” Schenck said.

Police have over the years discussed making permanent dead ends of streets with a history of drive-by shootings, but this is a temporary measure, Schenck said, though he declined to put a timeline on it.

Neighbors are relieved the house is empty but not all favor the roadblock.

If someone wants to commit a crime, “he’ll just get in another way,” said Wallace Anderson Sr., a neighbor across the canal and father of Sunnyside’s former police chief Wally Anderson. “I like to have a road going both ways.”