Bullets hit the Vancouver family home as MPs opened fire on armed suspects
Author: Galen Ettlin
VANCOUVER, Wash. (KGW) – A Vancouver family counts bullet holes in their home. They said Clark County MPs did not properly consider their safety during a fatal shooting Sunday morning.
MPs said they tried to arrest a man wanted for assault with a gun. The man led them on a chase until they forced his SUV off the road. They said he got out with a gun and shots had been fired, although they did not say who fired first.
Cony Ramirez said her mother and daughter were both home at the time bullets flew through the walls. Her home is now riddled with bullet holes, some of which run the length of the house on NE 49th Street.
“I thank God. I think it’s a miracle that this ball didn’t just land, it went there,” said Ramirez, gesturing slightly away from her daughter. “I’m grateful that my family is fine.”
The stranger died in their driveway.
“This trauma won’t go away [soon],” She said.
“I can’t sleep,” said Ramirez’s mother Teresita Lanoria with trembling hands.
Ramirez’s son, Renz Soriano, was working overnight when bullets flew through his room.
“I’m just thinking what if I wasn’t at work?” He said. “Thinking about it is really scary.”
The family found a leftover ball fragment behind their perforated washing machine on Monday morning. The machine flooded their kitchen when they tried to use it without realizing that it was also hit.
Ramirez is now trying to find repairs to her home by contacting the county and city, but she says she is receiving no clear guidance.
“Someone has to be accountable,” said Ramirez. “It’s just our responsibility to find the right person to fix all of this.”
The shooting took place just after 2 a.m. on Sunday. From then until early afternoon, the family said that investigators ransacked their home without sharing much information. Meanwhile, a dead man stood in their driveway.
“We were treated like just one animal,” said Ramirez. “Our privacy has been taken from us.”
“Nobody asks if we are fine, how we are feeling,” added Soriano.
Ramirez believes the MPs involved, who are now on leave, ignored the security of the neighborhood when they shot a wanted man.
“I don’t know how you were trained, but I think you chose this job because you wanted to protect the community. You wanted to protect us and not hurt us, ”said Ramirez. “But the way I see these bullets there doesn’t protect us.”
A memorial made of red flowers and bandanas stood on the sidewalk on Monday, right in front of the family’s bullet-pierced back wall.
KGW reached out to the Clark County Sheriff’s Office, Vancouver Police, the coroner’s office and the SW Washington Independent Investigative Team for details of the investigation into who the man was, who shot first, and exactly how the man died . However, by Monday afternoon, these agencies had not released any new details.
As gun violence increases across the country and the Pacific Northwest, Cony Ramirez counts bullet holes and her family’s blessings.
“Don’t get over it,” said Ramirez. “We all have to come together to do something about it.”