Driver in Evergreen Way shooting is sentenced to 18 months

EVERETT — By David Drewery’s account, he is being sent to prison because he let the wrong guys in his car.

One of those guys fired five rounds into a BMW stopped at Olympic Drive and Madison Street in central Everett. Three men were inside the sports car, and all escaped serious injury.

The gunman has never been identified but Drewery, 22, was arrested after the victims chased him down. A jury convicted Drewery of drive-by shooting in May.

His lawyer argued that Drewery had no idea that his passenger, someone he had met that day, was carrying a gun.

He was in the wrong place at the wrong time, said Natalie Tarantino, an attorney with the Snohomish County Public Defender Association.

Drewery had picked up an acquaintance who was with two other guys. One reportedly took issue with the way one of the victims looked at him outside a marijuana shop on Evergreen Way. Prosecutors allege that Drewery chased after the victims. Gunfire broke out a short time later.

“They were not my friends and I did not help them,” Drewery said Tuesday. “I ask God for forgiveness for my stupidity.”

He asked the judge to send him home to his family. “I’m terribly scared of being here,” Drewery said.

Superior Court Judge Richard Okrent on Tuesday sentenced Drewery to 18 months in prison for the March 15 shooting. He also ordered the defendant to stay away from the three victims for the next decade.

Okrent wasn’t persuaded that Drewery wasn’t in on a plan to harm the victims. He chased after their car and slowly drove by them, affording the shooter time to fire into the vehicle, the judge said.

“I’m convinced it was a plan. I’m convinced, as you say, it was stupid,” Okrent said.

The judge called the drive-by shooting the “near murder of three people.”

Okrent rejected the defense’s request for a four-month sentence, saying there wasn’t any reason to depart from the standard range as established by the state’s Sentencing Guidelines Commission. He also turned down the idea that Drewery’s age was reason for leniency.

He did acknowledge that the defendant didn’t have any prior criminal history.

Tarantino had requested a new trial for Drewery, accusing the prosecutor of bending the rules during closing arguments.

Before trial, Okrent ruled that jurors would not hear evidence that people in Drewery’s car were gang members. There was no evidence that Drewery was a gang member, and an Everett police detective confirmed that his name isn’t in a gang database.

Okrent, however, allowed the victims to testify that Drewery and a passenger were flashing gang signs before the shootings. The men couldn’t replicate the hand signals but said they recognized them from television and movies. Okrent also allowed an Everett police detective to testify that gang signs can signify membership in a group or be used to intimidate others.

The prosecutor “did use the broad brush to paint Mr. Drewery as a gang member,” and he wasn’t allowed to draw those conclusions, Tarantino said.

“There is substantial likelihood that such stereotyping affected the outcome of this case,” she wrote.

Drewery, who is African American, denied that he was flashing gang signs. He said he was motioning for the driver to move his car.

Deputy prosecutor Andrew Alsdorf defended his actions and called the defense’s claims baseless and inflammatory.

He didn’t tell the jury Drewery was in a gang and he followed the court’s rules, Alsdorf said.

“It was important for the jury to consider what evidence, if any, proved that the defendant was acting in concert as a member of a group of four people, with the other three occupants of his vehicle when the crime occurred, including the shooter,” Alsdorf wrote.

The victims testified that Drewery and the passenger were displaying gang signs, which was evidence that Drewery had knowledge of what was happening and necessary to prove he was an accomplice to the crime, Alsdorf added.

“Because the defendant’s motion is not about racism, counsel’s comparison to that topic are destructive to the integrity of our criminal courts,” Alsdorf wrote.

Okrent denied the defense’s motion for a new trial. The prosecutor did nothing inappropriate, the judge said. He presented a nuanced argument that fit within pre-trial rulings, Okrent added.

Diana Hefley: 425-339-3463; hefley@heraldnet.com.