BENTON COUNTY, Wash.-The suspect in a deadly shooting at a graduation party in Benton City over the summer was officially charged in Benton County Superior Court on Nov. 15.
Elijah Mykale Cruz, 20, was charged with First Degree Murder according to court documents after shooting into a car at the party on June 10.
Benton County Sheriff’s Deputies responded to the shooting at a home around 12:30 a.m. According to probable cause documents, a suspect shot into a garage full of people, hitting five of them.
The victims suffered non-life threatening to critical injuries in the shooting. After firing, the shooter reportedly left the scene in a car with three other people.
According to court documents, as the car left the scene, Cruz fired multiple shots at it, hitting a passenger in the backseat. The victim was taken to Prosser Memorial Hospital where they died of their injuries.
Further investigation showed that both the shooter who fired into the garage and Cruz were associated with local and Yakima gangs.
The shooting in the garage was captured on surveillance footage from a nearby house and shows muzzle flashes followed by the sound of gunshots according to court documents.
The video shows the presumed shooter running away from the garage and several people running out of the garage. One of the people who ran from the garage, who is believed to be Cruz in the video, can be seen crouching behind a car and then firing at the car carrying the first shooter.
Bullet casings recovered at the scene of the shooting confirm what the video shows. A search warrant issued for Cruz’s Instagram and Snapchat accounts also used geolocation to place him in the area of the shooting.
Cruz contacted several people about the sale or trade of his gun in the days following the shooting according to Instagram, Snapchat and court records. In one photo Cruz can be seen holding a gun with the serial number visible. The gun was traced to a burglary in Kennewick in April of 2023 in which 60 guns were stolen from a home.
Cruz has already been charged in connection to the stolen guns, according to court documents.
While in the Benton County Jail on an unrelated charge Cruz allegedly mentioned that the shooting was “self-defense.”
After his call records were reviewed the official murder charges were filed.
