Police release more details about officer shooting
Members of the Washington State Patrol, Moses Lake Police Department and Grant County Sheriff's Office talk in the Lep-re-kon grocery store parking lot after MLPD officer Brian Jones shot Roberto Escamilla Mendoza, 36 of Warden during an alleged drug bust. Officers later found 5.7 lbs. of methamphetamine in Eascamilla Mendoza's residence.
EPHRATA - Police say the Warden man an officer shot in the Lep-re-kon parking lot Friday after he struck police vehicles was delivering an ounce of methamphetamine.
A press release from the Moses Lake Police Department states Sgt. Brian Jones shot Roberto Escamilla Mendoza, 36, of Warden after a vehicle Escamilla Mendoza was driving struck two police vehicles during an alleged drug bust.
Jones has been with the MLPD for 16 years, according to a police statement. The police report does not indicate whether Escamilla Mendoza had a weapon when officers shot him.
Escamilla Mendoza was airlifted to Harborview Medical Center in Seattle after the shooting. He was still in the hospital as of Wednesday, but Harborview spokesperson Susan Grigg would not provide any other information about him.
The incident began when police arrested Raoul Jimenez, 46, of Warden the previous day for possession of methamphetamine, according to court documents. To lessen his prosecution, Jimenez reportedly told the arresting officers the name, physical description and phone number of his meth dealer, Escamilla Mendoza, according to the police report.
Jimenez was booked into Grant County Jail and while in the jail was allowed to call Escamilla Mendoza to set up a drug deal in the Lep-re-kon parking lot, according to the police report.
Moses Lake police officers followed Escamilla Mendoza from his house on Spruce Street in Warden to the Moses Lake Lep-re-kon parking lot and approached the vehicle. According to court documents, Escamilla Mendoza "violently reversed" then tried to leave the parking lot and was shot by Jones.
According to Jimenez, Escamilla Mendoza only speaks Spanish and worked at a dairy barn on Dodson Road. He said Escamilla Mendoza did not use meth that he only sold it. Jimenez said Escamilla Mendoza sold him meth 12 times in the last year, usually in 1-ounce quantities for $600 each time.
Officers found $4,600 in cash, 23 bags of meth, eight fraudulent identification cards and a digital scale in Escamilla Mendoza's residence, according to court documents. They found a total of 5.7 lbs. of meth in his house, according to court documents.
A woman at the home who told officers she was Escamilla Mendoza's girlfriend said he was previously deported from the U.S. to Mexico but snuck back in to the country.
When police arrested Jimenez at his Warden residence, they found about ? of an ounce of meth in his toilet. He told officers he tried to flush it when they got to his house. He said he used and sold meth. The report does not state what tipped officers to Jimenez's drug dealing.
The Columbia Basin Investigation Team comprised of officers from Ephrata, Quincy, and Othello police departments, Grant and Adams County sheriff's departments and Washington State Patrol are investigating the incident.
Editor's note: In Monday's paper in an article by Richard Byrd, the Herald inaccurately reported that four officers fired their weapons. The article should have stated four officers were at the scene and one officer fired his weapon, injuring the suspect.