Keizer Police Department. (KEIZERTIMES/Joey Cappelletti)
A man arrested in Keizer last year after shooting into a car with two adults and an infant pleaded guilty on Monday, Feb. 14 and was sentenced to just under six years in prison.
Twenty-one-year-old Christian Diaz-Diaz was arrested on June 30, 2021 following a shooting that occurred in Keizer and was originally charged with two counts of Attempted Murder in the First Degree, Attempt to Commit a Class B Felony, Assault in the Second Degree and Unlawful Use of a Weapon.
The two counts of attempted murder were dismissed in the guilty plea agreement reached on Feb. 14. Under Oregon’s Measure 11, attempted murder crimes carry a minimum sentence of 90 months.
Diaz-Diaz was sentenced to 60 months for Attempt to Commit a Class B Felony, 70 months for Assault in the Second Degree and 13 months for Unlawful Use of a Weapon. The sentences will run concurrently and he will not be eligible for early release.
Keizer police responded to a shooting near River Road and Cummings Lane in Keizer on the evening of June 25, 2021 after a 18-year-old female car passenger had been shot and transported to the Salem Hospital emergency room.
According to a probable cause affidavit, the woman told Keizer police that her, her boyfriend and his infant son were on their way to Keizer Rapids Park when a man pulled up next to their car and fired three shots. The woman was hit in the knee by one of the bullets. No one else was injured.
The woman’s boyfriend told police, according to the affidavit, that he was driving north on River Road when he saw Diaz-Diaz stopped on the east side of the road. The man told police that he thought Diaz-Diaz was laughing and waving a gun around in the car before speeding up to the car and firing three shots.
The probable cause affidavit said that security footage from a gas station on the corner of River Road and Cummings Lane showed Diaz-Diaz’s BMW speeding up to their car and firing “four distinct shots.”
The man told police he believed Diaz-Diaz targeted him because he had continued talking to Diaz-Diaz’s current girlfriend.
News tip? Contact reporter Joey Cappelletti at [email protected] or 616-610-3093.
