A year after deadly shooting in Bush Park, a heartbroken family forges on

José Vázquez Valenzuela didn’t want to go to school.

It was a Wednesday evening last March, and the sophomore at South Salem High School wouldn’t tell his parents why. They weren’t having it.

“You better be good in school and go to all your periods, because I’m going to be checking up on you,” his mother, Aida Valenzuela, recalled telling him.

José, 16, didn’t put up a fight. “OK, mom. I love you,” he told her.

The next day, José was gunned down in broad daylight three blocks north of school in Bush’s Pasture Park.

Friday marks a year since one of the most high-profile shootings to ever take place in Salem on March 7, 2024.

It ended the life of one teen and irreparably altered three others. Two boys were hospitalized with injuries. The accused shooter, at the time a sophomore in high school, faces allegations including murder in juvenile court, with prosecutors seeking to try him as an adult.

The shooting was a wakeup call for the community and the catalyst for sweeping changes in school security procedures, including the installation of weapon detectors in local high schools. It also gave momentum to an effort by local law enforcement to crack down on community violence.

José’s death shows how teenagers who disengaged from school during pandemic closures were sometimes drawn into conflict that can turn deadly. That’s true even for young people like him who grew up with parents engaged in the community and no gang affiliations.

Conflicts stirring up on social media and easy access to guns have also compounded the prevalence of youth violence in Salem.

Gang culture is a fact of life that many Salem teenagers are confronted with in school halls, neighborhoods and online. School and police officials say most gangs in the city that include youth are not sophisticated criminal organizations such as those trafficking deadly drugs. Instead, they’re more informal groups of young people – often armed with guns and knives – who taunt and fight those sporting opposing colors in public places.

People with knowledge of the Bush Park shooting told Salem Reporter that it was the result of a dispute between two classmates. Some of those involved in the confrontation had ties to such informal groups.

South students were just finishing the school’s second lunch session when shots rang out at Bush Park. The students connected to the shooting had an earlier lunch period and were supposed to be in class at the time.

Aida cries at the thought that she urged José to go to school that day. She believed at the time that was her duty. Now, a year later, she is filled with guilt.

“I feel like I threw my son to get killed,” she said.

Begging for help

José was born on Nov. 22, 2007, in Salem. He was the youngest of three brothers.

Growing up, he was especially close with his dad, Alvaro Vázquez, a welder. Some of Alvaro’s fondest memories of José are on the soccer field. He started a recreational soccer team in 2017 and José played goalie and defense. 

Alvaro recalled one summer day when he lost sight of then 6-year-old José during soccer practice – and eventually found him at a nearby ice cream stand.

José loved to cook from an early age, prepping potato salad, hot wings, fries, tacos and green salsa for his family.

His mom, a preschool teacher at a Head Start program in Salem, often came home from work and found him making dinner. He would tell his older brother, “I’ll cook, but you’re washing dishes,” Aida recalled with a laugh.

“He was really smart. He always cared for us,” she said.

José was an avid fan of the Club América professional soccer club and spent many nights playing video games with his brothers and cousins. 

In his teen years, he grew more quiet and hesitated to open up to his parents. 

Raised in a bilingual home, he was known to translate English for his Spanish-speaking classmates.

“He still was kind of mommy’s boy, but he was more independent,” Aida said.

Like many kids, José had a difficult time keeping up with school when Covid forced his classes online in sixth grade. Soccer practice stopped, which took away one of his biggest joys and social activities. He eventually lost interest in the sport.

José continued struggling in eighth grade after returning to class in-person at Houck Middle School. Aida enrolled him in Saturday school in hopes that his grades would improve.

Toward the end of his freshman year at South, he started disengaging from school and wasn’t passing classes. This time, his mother switched him to online classes for the first few months of his sophomore year so his grandparents could keep an eye on him at home.

José ran away from home twice in the months before his death. Aida said when she called police, they told her he needed to be missing for 48 hours before they could take action.

The second time he ran, his mom said she called the Marion County Juvenile Department to get him into a support program but was told that couldn’t happen because he “didn’t have a record.” The department’s support programs are generally only available if ordered by a judge after a minor is accused of a crime.

“You’re waiting for him to have a record?” she recalled saying. “I’m telling you I’m trying to avoid all this.”

The juvenile department did place him under a curfew that required him to be home by 9 p.m.

Around three months before José’s death, school staff recommended he return to in-person classes so he could be more social. 

But he started skipping class again. His mom consulted a school counselor, who started making him sign a sheet of paper when he showed up to class.

He would attend some classes but was absent for others. Still, she said school staff weren’t concerned because he was showing up part of the time.

The issues José was having, she said, were fixable. “But I don’t feel like I got the support that I needed, even though we begged for the support,” she said.

To this day, José’s parents don’t know why he was avoiding school. They recall pressing him for answers and being met with silence. But they now look back on moments from his last days alive as clues that he may have been trying to steer clear of brewing conflict with classmates.

Early one Saturday night, José came home with muddy clothes and bruises on his face and back. He went straight to his room and wouldn’t tell his parents what happened.

Aida was concerned but chose to give him space. “I wanted him to come and tell me,” she said.

A couple days later, she noticed José holding his brother’s cell phone and pretending it was his own. She later learned someone had broken his phone. Again, he refused to tell his parents what happened.

Aida said she’s since heard that José had gotten into fights with the boy now accused of killing him.

The day before José’s death, his father stayed home sick from work. Alvaro woke up from a nap to find his son still at home.

He recalled José telling him, “I didn’t want to go to school.”

Alvaro decided to cut him a break so they could spend the day together. He told José to clean his room while he made him eggs and hot dogs for breakfast. That afternoon, they grabbed hot Cheetos – José’s favorite snack – and watched a soccer match on TV.

“That day, we lived together to the fullest,” Alvaro said in Spanish.

But Alvaro knew his wife wouldn’t be so forgiving, so he told José he needed to go to school the next day. 

Aida put her foot down when she got home from work. “You need to go to school because your only responsibility is to go to school,” she recalls telling José. He didn’t argue with her.

Tragedy in plain sight

Bush Park is a community fixture, surrounded by the Oregon State Capitol, Willamette University, Salem Hospital and South Salem High School.

Teens gathering at the 90-acre park is an ordinary sight, especially those walking over from school to eat lunch or skip class.

Park visitors described seeing just that around 1:45 p.m. on March 7, 2024. 

Witnesses that day told Salem Reporter they saw two kids approach a group of kids sitting on a bench. Suddenly, they heard seven or eight gunshots ring out in rapid succession.

They saw one group of teens run north and another group take off south into a neighborhood.

One woman, a physician, said she ran toward a teen who had a gunshot wound on his abdomen. 

She asked someone nearby to hold pressure on the wound while she ran to another boy, who was lying face down. She flipped him over, pulled up his clothes and saw he’d been shot in the chest. 

It was José. Police pronounced him dead 15 minutes later.

Alvaro was changing the oil on a truck at work when he was suddenly overwhelmed with the feeling that something was wrong. His anxiety briefly left him motionless underneath the truck. 

Aida was in a virtual meeting at work – close to Bush Park – when another teacher told her that South had just gone into a lockdown. She said she felt “a deep pain” in her stomach.

Knowing José didn’t have a working phone, she called her older son who also went to South. He’d already gone home and said he hadn’t heard from José’s friends about where he was.

Aida grew more anxious and started crying as she heard ambulance sirens. Then, the preschool where she worked also went into lockdown.

She had to attend another meeting at 4 p.m. but has no recollection of what it was about. “My mind was somewhere else,” she said.

Around 5:30 p.m., she packed up and headed home in tears.

By then, people were contacting Aida to tell her there had been an incident at the park and ask where José was. Until that day, José had always called or texted her in the afternoon – even though he didn’t have a phone, he would find a way.

Alvaro finished work, went home and was getting ready for soccer practice at Houck when José’s godparents came over. They had heard vague rumors that José may have been involved in the park incident.

The godparents went with Alvaro to South to ask about José, but school staff said they couldn’t give him any information. They then drove to Salem Hospital in person. The receptionist told them José wasn’t there.

Aida came home to find one of José’s friends there with his mom. They’d heard that someone had been airlifted to a Portland hospital, so they called Oregon Health & Science University. José wasn’t there either.

Then they called the police, who said they couldn’t share any information. Police said if officers hadn’t come to her house, then her son must not have been hurt.

For about 15 minutes, she felt relieved. That was until she heard a knock at the door and was greeted by four or five officers. At first, she feared José might have been arrested.

“You want to sit down?” one officer asked. 

She said no.

“I think it’s better if you sit down,” he said.

She doubled down. “No, tell me!”

The officer told her there had been “an incident” at Bush Park. “Your son, José Vázquez Valenzuela, died at the scene,” he said. 

Aida was hysterical – enough that she thought they might take her to jail. She became enraged as she thought of all the times she sought authorities’ help for José without success.

“I asked for everybody’s help,” she recalled shouting at the officers. “This could’ve been avoided. You guys did not do nothing when I asked for help.”

Ripple effect

Aida spent the next few days in shock. 

Relatives and friends cycled in and out of the house, asking how she was doing, bringing food and cleaning. “I wasn’t really feeling anything,” she said.

It wasn’t until the night after the shooting that the suspect showed up at the Salem Police Department station with a parent to turn himself in.

Nathaniel S. McCrae, 16 at the time, was accused in Marion County Juvenile Court of second-degree murder, two counts of first-degree attempted murder, two counts of first-degree assault and three counts of using a dangerous weapon. He has spent the last year in juvenile detention.

The Marion County District Attorney’s Office is seeking to prosecute McCrae, now 17, as an adult through a long and complicated legal process called “waiver.”

Under state law passed in 2019, doing so requires prosecutors to prove that trying a minor in the juvenile system wouldn’t benefit them or society, and that they were mature enough to understand the seriousness of their conduct at the time. Judges must also consider the youth’s history.

McCrae was previously accused of fourth-degree assault and resisting arrest in October 2022, when he was 14. That case was resolved with a “formal accountability agreement,” according to juvenile department records.

He recently completed a series of psychological evaluations that will help prosecutors decide whether to proceed with asking a judge to move the case to adult court. Only one minor in Marion County has undergone such a hearing.

Aida and Alvaro both said they hope he is tried as an adult. 

The teenager appeared in court on April 22, 2024, wearing a green t-shirt and staring at the floor for much of the tense hearing. 

“I was trying to make eye contact with him, but he would not look at me at all,” Aida said.

The juvenile courtroom that day was unusually packed. Speaking at a podium, the boy’s mom told Marion County Circuit Court Judge Manuel Perez that her family was being threatened.

Then came Aida’s turn to speak. She told the judge that she, too, was concerned for her family’s safety. She said her son’s memorial had been repeatedly vandalized. 

A video posted to social media showed a group of people kicking over items and pouring beer onto José’s gravesite while flashing hand signs.

Aida told Salem Reporter that the memorial was defaced as recently as a month ago. She said the taunting has made the mourning process even more difficult for her family.

“Just let him rest in peace and let us grieve,” she said.

She misses getting daily afternoon calls from José to ask when she’s coming home and what they’ll be cooking together.

“Every time I look at my phone, he doesn’t call me,” she said through tears. Sometimes, she calls José’s phone and leaves voicemails. 

A year later, her middle son is still “barely out of shock,” she said. He still insists that José went on a trip and is going to return home. 

Her oldest is still filled with anger. José would often go to his apartment to have dinner and play video games. He would also pick up his young nephew from the bus stop on his way home from preschool, keeping him company until his dad returned from work.

Aida recalled the younger boy going to José’s room after his death, crying and asking where he was.

She said the celebration of what would have been José’s 17th birthday was packed with family and friends at the cemetery where he is buried.

Momentum toward change

Aida now regularly meets with a group for Salem moms who struggle with their sons’ behavior. The group is led by Christina Puentes, a retired gang manager for the Oregon Youth Authority, the state’s juvenile justice agency.

Puentes said Salem has “a major gap” in services that would help prevent youth violence before it’s too late.

“Salem’s gang issue is out of control,” she told Salem Reporter.

Public safety leaders in Salem didn’t sound the alarm about rising youth violence until months before José’s death.

A city report in November 2023 found that the number of teens arrested for serious assaults had tripled in recent years.

The report said at least half of shootings in the previous past five years involved members of gangs or informal groups as victims, suspects or both. Researchers estimated that the number of such crimes could be as high as eight out of 10 based on incidents where detectives couldn’t determine affiliation or identify a suspect.

The results of the study set in motion what Salem-area leaders are calling the Community Violence Reduction Initiative, a collective effort by law enforcement, community organizations and service providers to reduce deadly violence in the city.

Salem police and the Marion County Sheriff’s Office assigned overtime work this past summer to ramp up vehicle and foot patrols in parts of Salem most vulnerable to violence. Police also spent more time proactively checking in with minors on parole and probation who were at high risk for violence, as well as their families.

Salem Police Deputy Chief Debra Aguilar, who is leading the agency’s role in the joint effort, said it’s intended to arrest people who commit violent crimes while also doing long-term, community-driven work to prevent future violence and intervene in the lives of those at risk.

A year after the Bush Park shooting, local authorities say those efforts are showing some signs of success, though they remain challenged by a lack of dedicated staffing and funding for violence reduction work.

Preliminary data shows that between 2023 and 2024, Salem police saw a 50% drop in credible reports of gunfire. But the city’s overall violent crime rate appears to still be trending upward, Aguilar said.

She said it’s unclear what percentage of shootings involve youth because the department doesn’t track data on specific demographics.

Troy Gregg, the juvenile director, said there has been only one shooting in Marion County where a minor was accused of pulling the trigger since José’s death.

“The Bush Park shooting was a community tragedy and was a culmination of the trends we were seeing at the time,” Gregg said in an email.

Department data showed that the number of juvenile allegations involving weapons have continued to increase since 2022. Gregg said he believes that’s partly due to the recent coordinated efforts by law enforcement to get guns off the streets, as well as the typical up-and-down trends of such crimes.

“There needs to be a lot of work partnering at the community level to increase the safety of our youth and further eliminate weapon violence and related incidents in the future,” he said. “We still see a lot of referrals for aggressive gang related behaviors, they are just fortunately not firearm related.”

Data from the Salem-Keizer School District shows fewer students involved in violence and shootings, though police are arresting students outside school with guns about as frequently. Last school year, district officials recorded a total of 22 incidents involving students with firearms in the community, including four people shot by students and nine where students fired a gun but didn’t hit anybody.

So far this school year, the district has recorded only one case where a student fired a gun in the community, along with nine cases of students detained with a gun outside of school.

Four guns have been taken from students at school so far this year, up from one last year. But those guns were all seized at schools that hadn’t yet installed weapon detectors, district spokesman Aaron Harada said.

In May 2024, South became the first school in the district to screen students entering the building for weapons in a pilot program. 

District Superintendent Andrea Castañeda said she’d been considering the idea and moved forward more quickly after José’s death. After screening rolled out at South, she decided in October to expand it to all district high schools this year.

McKay, McNary, North Salem, Roberts and Sprague high schools have since added weapons screening, and West Salem will follow suit later in March.

The systems are expected to cost about $1.9 million over five years.

The shooting also led to the creation of community-building groups, which Puentes helps run, for students in the school district who are at risk of violence.

Second chance

On Friday afternoon, the one-year anniversary of José’s death, the city will plant a tree at Bush Park in his honor. Aida said a Salem police detective who investigated his death advocated for the idea. 

She said their family strives to carry on José’s memory in everything they do.

Anytime they eat a meal together, they set a plate for José.

Alvaro continues to coach youth soccer, and he often imagines that José is one of the kids on the field. “But when the kid turns around, it’s not him,” he said.

The passenger seat of his car is draped in a shirt with a picture of José’s face. On drives, he often talks to his son as if he’s along for the ride. 

Before José’s death, Alvaro wanted to be buried with his mom in his hometown of Córdoba, Mexico. Now, he wants to be buried in Salem near his son. 

Aida said her son’s death has made her more mindful of her young students’ feelings. She now pays closer attention to warning signs so they can be addressed early.

“I’m trying to go to work every day, trying to stay as strong as I can be,” she said, her voice shaking. “I just take it day by day, because that’s the only thing I can do.”

Aida now feels compelled to educate families in Salem about the crisis of youth violence and encourage them to notice red flags in their kids’ behaviors. She started that effort just six weeks after José’s death when she spoke to a room of about 100 people at a city forum on reducing gun violence.

She asked the school to start letting parents know when their child skips class right away – not at the end of the day, when they’ve been absent for hours. 

Aida said the two other boys injured in the shooting were José’s friends. She continues to check on them, to make sure they’re on track to graduate and remind them that they have a second chance her son didn’t get. 

She urges them not to retaliate for José’s death, and instead honor his memory by pursuing careers and supporting their families.

“Do it for him,” she said. “I don’t want your mothers to be suffering the way I suffer. I don’t want to see your family the way we are right now.”

Managing Editor Rachel Alexander and reporter Joe Siess contributed reporting.

RELATED COVERAGE:

Salem-Keizer will expand weapon detectors to all high schools this school year

Salem park shooting prompts new worry about local gangs

“Waiting to hear gunshots”: South Salem students describe anxiety, trauma as school locked down following shooting

UPDATED: 16-year-old boy turns himself in, charged with fatal shooting at Bush’s Pasture Park

“The kid died in my lap”: witnesses describe tragedy, mayhem as 3 shot in Bush’s Pasture Park

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

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