EVERETT — Another young person is facing a long stretch behind bars for a gang shooting in south Everett. It was one of dozens of shootings motivated by a violent feud between gangs.
A jury late last week convicted a 17-year-old Everett boy of first-degree assault with a firearm for gunfire June 6, 2016, near an apartment building on Casino Road. The target was a 17-year-old girl who was dating a rival gang member. She was not injured.
“She could feel the bullets hitting the car,” Snohomish County deputy prosecutor Katie Wetmore told the jury during opening statements.
Seth Friendly had turned 16 about a week before the shooting. His neck is tattooed with the initials of a south Everett gang. Police found those same initials freshly spray-painted on an electrical box near where the shooters would have been standing.
Friendly also was suspected of taking part in another shooting about a week later.
Jurors didn’t believe Friendly’s alibi. His girlfriend said she was with him at the time of the June 6, 2016, shooting. The defense also questioned how the victim could identify Friendly as the shooter as she claimed. She told investigators that there were two shooters. She said she recognized Friendly from school. Police have never identified the other suspect.
Friendly faces up to 15 years in prison. He was charged as an adult because of the serious nature of the crime.
Everett defense attorney Thomas Cox fought to have the case handled in juvenile court, where Friendly would have faced a couple of years behind bars. Cox argued that Friendly has no prior record and would have a greater chance at rehabilitation in the juvenile system than in adult prison.
“It is cruel and unusual for Mr. Friendly to be facing jail time that would confine him until the age of 31 instead of being in a system where he would be out by age 18,” Cox wrote. “Mr. Friendly deserves a second chance and does not deserve to lose his mid-twenties to one bad day where no one was hurt.”
A judge ruled to keep Friendly’s case in the adult court.
It is expected that Cox will ask for leniency for his client, given Friendly’s age. He said his client will undergo an extensive evaluation so the court can consider any mitigating factors that would support going below a standard range sentence.
In recent years, the U.S. Supreme Court has made findings recognizing that young people’s brains are fundamentally different from adults. That acknowledgment has shifted how courts are asked to consider punishment for juvenile defendants, including an analysis of culpability given their development as well as their capacity for rehabilitation.
The defense team for a 21-year-old man convicted of murder asked a judge last week to take into account their client’s youth before handing down a sentence. Diego Tavares was 19 when he took part in a retaliation shooting that claimed the life of Anthony Camacho, 17. Prosecutors alleged that Tavares shot Camacho in 2015 in an attempt to get revenge on rival gang members.
Tavares was sentenced last week to 25 years in prison. Camacho’s death is believed to ratcheted up the violence between the gangs.
Diana Hefley: 425-339-3463; hefley@heraldent.com.
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