Road-rage shooting on I-5 in Tacoma wounded boy, 11. Here’s the gunman’s sentence
A man who shot at another driver on Interstate 5 in Tacoma, wounding an 11-year-old boy in the backseat following a dispute over merging, has been sentenced to 11 years in prison.
Jadan Davis-Gunn, 20, pleaded guilty Monday in Pierce County Superior Court to first-degree assault and second-degree unlawful possession of a firearm in the Nov. 25, 2022 shooting. According to court records, the defendant was driving a Chevrolet Cruze when he and a vehicle carrying three people tried to merge onto the northbound lanes of the interstate from 56th Street.
Davis-Gunn reportedly tried to prevent the other driver from merging, which prosecutors wrote in charging papers led to “brief road rage.” He pulled up to the passenger’s side of the other vehicle, a Honda CRV, and used a handgun to fire at least four shots into the car. The 11-year-old was struck in the arm and abdomen. A surgeon at Mary Bridge Children’s Hospital removed the bullet, which lodged in the boy’s liver.
The shooting had lasting effects on the boy’s family, his mother wrote in a letter submitted to the court in December 2022. In the days after, her son was terrified that someone would come shoot him again, she wrote, and he missed at least three weeks of school while he recovered.
“Our whole family life has changed,” the mother wrote. “My husband doesn’t want to go to work. He has so much anxiety about leaving (our son) each day. When our other kids ask to go somewhere, we feel panicked.”
Davis-Gunn was originally charged with three counts of first-degree assault. According to court filings, two of those assault counts were dropped as part of a plea agreement. Prosecutors wrote that the amended charges still secured a guilty plea to a felony considered a serious violent offense, and the defendant’s conviction included a 24-month sentencing enhancement because he was armed with a deadly weapon.
After Davis-Gunn pleaded guilty Monday, Judge Shelly Speir-Moss imposed a low-end sentence recommended by prosecutors, 135 months in prison.
There were multiple witnesses to the shooting, according to court records. A Washington State Patrol trooper found that the Chevrolet Cruz was registered to Davis-Gunn, and the car was located the day after the shooting outside a South Tacoma residence. Records state Davis-Gunn had been renting a room there.
Detectives later executed a search warrant on his vehicle and home, but, according to charging papers, they didn’t find a gun or shell casings. According to court records, Davis-Gunn has no prior adult criminal convictions, but as a juvenile he was convicted in nine cases between 2016 and 2018 in Spokane and Pierce County.
