Richland Case
At some point, we all go over the edge; something pushes us to our limits. We are human; we can only take so much; some people may scream, punch a wall, or just keep quiet and laugh. Which seems the most out of pocket out of the list; other people take it even further though, killing, kidnapping, or taking their own life. Now, I am not making it seem like we should have open arms with serial killers, but we need to have an understanding of why people do what they do and how we can help other people before it gets to the extreme. There is this stigma for people when they finally get help because it's always “that's not how we do things,” people suffer at the hands of someone else because that person felt so alone and messed up, and no one took the time to see what's going on behind the scenes. Taking care of someone who is struggling with any type of mental distress is hard; there are ups and downs, but in the end, you can help and stop them from hurting themselves or the people around them because when it’s bad, it’s bad.
On a late Monday night, the Richland police department set off phones with an amber alert notification, searching for a 39-year-old man and his son. An hour later, the Oregon police made their own amber alert with the same information. Later that same day, a clerk at a store in Oregon called the police to let them know their suspect was in her store.
She reported that the hostage child was in the backseat of the car; Oregon PD didn't take any time responding to the tip call. They watched for the 39-year-old vehicle on the Integrate 5; once they spotted the vehicle, they chased after the car heading south. When the criminal was in a high-speed chase, he got into a minor collision that slowed him down but got back into his speed. When the suspect was getting close to entering Eugene, Oregon, he got into another crash, grabbed his firearm, and ended his life in front of his son; when the scene was safe, officers were able to get the child out of the car. The young boy was put into foster care; he is now an orphan.
A 39-year-old former resource Yakima police officer was married to Amber Rodriguez, but they got a divorce in 2020. Rodriguez was a teacher at Wiley Elementary School in West Richland. The former Yakima officer shot went on the campus of his ex-wife's school and ended her life in front of his son, who was in the backseat of the car. The police found her shot a total of eight times. While police were searching the killer's home, they found an unalive body in his home; it was later found out that it was his 17-year-old girlfriend. Police found out that the suspect and the 17-year-old had been living together for a year before this bloody case. They met when he was in Yakima, working as a resource officer at a middle school here in town. She was 11 years old at the time; when she was 15, the suspect impregnated her, and the child had recently turned 1. His wife was trying to get a protection order against him. Believe it or not, that’s not all this cold-hearted man has done; he was accused of sexually assaulting a 16-year-old girl who was unconscious and had no memory of the incident.
The crime rate in our own little town is pretty high for how small our community is; the number of people who are getting shot or being put in jail for crimes that are pretty extreme is high. The trauma that this little boy will have to deal with in the future is going to be pretty intense; he saw both of his parents lose their lives. Not only did he see a lot of traumatic events, but the young boy has a father who suffers from obvious mental health issues, and something that people don’t realize and understand is some things that his father struggled with he might struggle with in his future. Now, I’m not saying that he will have a manic episode and end the lives of his closest friends or family, but there is a chance that the young boy will struggle socially and understand relationships. The person who did a lot of damage to three individuals is gone, and they will not get the justice they deserve, but one way we can honor the people who have lost their lives is to keep this from happening again.
We need to keep up with what's going on in our local community; we need to know what kind of danger is out in our world. Not only because it’s important to stay informed but because we need to know how our community is affected and figure out what we can do to help, maybe by giving the homeless food or a blanket or listening to someone going through a rough time. There is no surprise that the violence is getting worse, and it’s getting hard to feel safe stepping out of your home, contacting authorities, and sharing information about things we see that might be out of the ordinary. Being there for someone going through a tough time can be more beneficial than someone could understand; being mentally stable is something that is taken for granted. A lot of the people who are going out and ending people's lives, robbing, or taking their own lives had a lot of mental issues that people looked over because it’s seen as weak or you are not expected because you get really anxious around big crowds. The support from communities that weren’t even close to the family was sending prayers, posting pictures of the amber alert, and trying to get anyone to call and give any information they ha; itt was impacting to see.