City News, PUBLIC SAFETY

Woman sues Oregon Youth Authority, alleging teen on parole shot her in 2021

A woman is suing the Oregon Youth Authority, alleging the agency was negligent by paroling a teen with a history of violence who later shot her in northeast Salem in 2021.

Amaretta Rice sued the youth authority, Director Joseph O’Leary, two parole and probation employees, and Daniel Berger, superintendent of MacLaren Youth Correctional Facility, in Marion County Circuit Court on Tuesday. She is seeking up to $17.5 million in damages.

The complaint alleges state officials knew that Gerardo Trujillo-Torres had previously assaulted others, including with a gun, and was involved in a gang when the youth authority paroled him in July 2020.

Rice said in the suit that they were negligent in failing to prevent Trujillo-Torres from assaulting Rice, including by releasing the teen on parole without considering his threat of harm to others and failing to arrest him or revoke his parole after he violated its conditions.

Trujillo-Torres, now 18, stands charged with second-degree murder, two counts of conspiracy to commit second-degree murder, attempted first-degree murder and first-degree assault in Marion County Circuit Court. 

The teen is accused of shooting Rice and 24-year-old Joshua Steward in January 2021, when he was 16. Steward was pronounced dead at the scene, and Rice suffered serious injuries including gunshot wounds to her head.

Trujillo-Torres is the first teen Marion County prosecutors have argued should be tried in adult court since the passing of Senate Bill 1008 in 2019. The new law left that decision in the hands of judges. Previously, those charged with violent crimes were automatically treated as adults. Teens convicted of violent crimes would go to an Oregon Youth Authority facility in lieu of state prison, but if they didn’t finish out their sentence before turning 25, they completed it in the adult prison system.

The complaint said that diversion efforts such as peer court were unsuccessful and Trujillo-Torres was involved in additional incidents of violence and property damage. He was placed under the supervision of the Marion County Juvenile Department in 2019 for six separate “gang-related incidents.”

Juvenile court records are generally confidential under state law.

The youth authority declined to comment on the suit, citing pending litigation.

Rice’s attorney, Erin Olson, also said in an email that Rice had no comment “out of respect for the pending criminal matters.”

The county Juvenile Department in January 2020 referred Trujillo-Torres to the state Youth Authority for “close-custody confinement and supervision” after he was involved in a fight during his fourth stay in juvenile detention, and he was placed at MacLaren, the lawsuit said. There, he was involved in another fight.

After Trujillo-Torres was released from the facility on parole, the complaint said he violated his parole conditions by using a compressed air gun to shoot from a vehicle at strangers in another vehicle in Keizer. He self-reported the incident to his juvenile parole and probation officer, Renée Hernandez, who took no action against the teen, the lawsuit said. Hernandez is named in the suit along with her supervisor, Michael Runyon.

On January 16, 2021, an acquaintance in an affiliated gang allegedly recruited Trujillo-Torres to kill Joshua Steward for Steward’s “perceived betrayal of fellow drug dealers who were also gang-involved,” the complaint said.

Steward had arranged to buy $340 of cocaine in a parking lot in front of Hoover Elementary School around 8 p.m. that day, and Rice rode with him, according to testimony by Salem Police Department detective Jamie Vasas in a Marion County Juvenile Court Hearing May 2. 

The complaint said Trujillo-Torres approached their vehicle and fired six shots, killing Steward and striking Rice, who was Steward’s passenger, in the head. Steward gunned the vehicle as he was being shot and it accelerated quickly until it struck a nearby tree. 

Rice did not know and had never met Trujillo-Torres before he shot her and Steward, the lawsuit said. Rice suffered injuries including hemorrhages near her brain and a skull fracture that required surgery to stop bleeding, remove bone fragments, remove necrosed brain tissue, and remove some “but not all” of the bullet fragments from her brain. She continues to suffer frontal lobe headaches and ringing in her ears, according to the suit. 

She suffered additional serious injuries from the ensuing crash which left her with nerve damage and impaired movement in her toes, following surgery, the complaint said.

In June 2022, Marion County Circuit Judge Lindsay Partridge told Salem Reporter that the state had “proved the necessary elements” to have Trujillo-Torres be prosecuted in circuit court as an adult. 

The passing of SB 1008 in 2019 gave judges discretion on whether to charge teens 15 and older as adults for violent crimes. 

Trujillo-Torres’ case is the second in the state where prosecutors have prevailed in getting a teenage defendant’s case moved to circuit court since the new law passed, according to Marion County Deputy District Attorney Brendan Murphy.

The same day as his indictment for Steward’s killing, a Marion County grand jury indicted Trujillo-Torres on charges of fourth-degree assault and first-degree burglary.

The charges allege he entered a “dwelling” at Marion County’s Juvenile Detention Facility and assaulted a 17-year-old boy on Aug. 3.

Status check hearings are scheduled in both criminal cases for March 23 in Marion County Circuit Court.

PREVIOUS COVERAGE:

Teen indicted in northeast Salem shooting in landmark Marion County case

Boy charged with murder first in Marion County to be tried as adult since Measure 11 reform

Contact reporter Ardeshir Tabrizian: [email protected] or 503-929-3053.

JUST THE FACTS, FOR SALEM – We report on your community with care and depth, fairness and accuracy. Get local news that matters to you. Subscribe to Salem Reporter. Click I want to subscribe!

Ardeshir Tabrizian has covered criminal justice and housing for Salem Reporter since September 2021. As an Oregon native, his award-winning watchdog journalism has traversed the state. He has done reporting for The Oregonian, Eugene Weekly and Malheur Enterprise.