Jose De Santiago Perez, 27, was a Hispanic/Latino man who spent the evening of March 18, 2020, in Kent’s North Park neighborhood, gathered with friends at a small park near the corner of Second Avenue North and West Cloudy Street, just across from the bustle of Kent Station. Not long before 8 p.m., the calm broke—shots rang out, and he was struck in the head, leaving him critically wounded as police and medics rushed in to help.
Investigators later alleged the shooting wasn’t random. According to charging documents described in local reporting, two young men—Francisco Lopez-Cruz Jr. of Federal Way and Andy Castaneda-Rodriguez of Des Moines—rolled through the area in an Audi, circling the neighborhood for about 26 minutes before opening fire. Prosecutors said the gunfire targeted Perez and the two people with him, with additional assault charges filed for shots fired at the others at the park. Perez was transported to Harborview Medical Center in Seattle, where he died the next day, March 19, 2020.
The case was framed as a clash tied to rival groups. Court papers referenced in the reporting described Lopez-Cruz and Castaneda-Rodriguez as members of the United Lokotes, while Perez and others were described as connected to South Side Loco, gangs said to have been locked in a violent feud for years. Prosecutors portrayed the killing as deliberate and gang-motivated, and a senior deputy prosecuting attorney wrote that the conduct alleged in this case showed an extreme threat to community safety if the defendants were released.
By the time murder charges were filed in June 2020, both suspects were already in custody. Reporting said they had been jailed since March 23 on unlawful firearm possession after an Auburn Police arrest, and each faced $3 million bail in the murder case, with Lopez-Cruz also described as being held with bail denied due to earlier Department of Corrections violations. Investigators said they built the case through surveillance footage, social media and cellphone records, witness interviews, and forensic examinations—then moved forward with first-degree murder charges.
As the court process stretched on, the case continued moving through Washington’s system. By September 16, 2025, the Washington Court of Appeals Division I scheduled oral argument in a consolidated matter listing both Lopez-Cruz and Castaneda-Rodriguez as appellants in the State of Washington’s case against them, signaling that the prosecution had progressed into the appellate stage.
