Man charged with shooting employee at Tacoma's Dorky's Arcade last year

Yahoo

2 days ago

A 25-year-old man is suspected of shooting an employee at Dorky's Arcade in Tacoma last year after he was not allowed inside the business.
Prosecutors charged Dre'shaughn Anthony Henderson with two counts of first-degree assault and first-degree unlawful possession of a firearm for the Oct. 12, 2024 shooting, court records show.
A plea of not guilty was entered on Henderson's behalf during his arraignment Thursday. Pierce County Superior Court Commissioner Barbara McInvaille set his bail at $100,000. He was in custody at the Pierce County Jail as of Friday afternoon.
Henderson is accused of shooting Connor Mendoza twice in the stomach after initially aiming for a security guard.
Mendoza told The News Tribune last year that the incident left him traumatized.
'I've had plenty of trauma in my life, all my life, but this is the worst kind of PTSD I have ever experienced in my entire —,' he said, his voice catching in his throat, according to the story, '— for my 31 years of my life.'
Officers were dispatched to the shooting at the bar-arcade business on Pacific Avenue after a call came in at about 12:50 a.m. The alleged shooter had been wearing a black ski mask and white hat, according to charging documents.
Mendoza, identified as 'C.M.' in charging documents, was awake and conscious as a fellow employee applied pressure to his gunshot wounds. He was taken to Tacoma General Hospital for surgery.
In an interview with detectives, Mendoza said a man came into the business, and a security guard eventually realized he had a firearm in his waistband, documents show.The alleged shooter was smiling under the mask, which scared the victim.
Documents later show the situation escalated with Mendoza and the security guard trying to push the man back. Mendoza said he believed the man was going to shoot the security guard in the head and pushed him back before he was shot.
Detectives spoke to the security guard, who said the alleged shooter was carrying a half bottle of tequila, which he tried to take inside the business. The man was upset when the security guard stopped him from coming in, documents show. The security guard said the man rushed in and took out his gun to shoot him but the shots struck Mendoza.
After the shooting, the man left the bottle behind, and no one had touched it afterwards, documents show. Detectives collected the bottle and a white hat the shooter also left behind.
Henderson was identified as the shooting suspect through DNA testing, ammunition from his car that allegedly was the same as a shell casing from the scene, and surveillance footage.
Fingerprints from the bottle had a possible association to Henderson's, court records show. Through his driver's license photo, detectives noted the 'curve of his nose and mouth' matched the alleged shooter from Dorky's surveillance video, documents show.
Phone records from Henderson allegedly showed his cell in area of Dorky's Arcade before and after the shooting.
Henderson has previous convictions in Pierce County for second-degree assault and drive by shooting from 2019. He was also convicted in 2018 for attempting to elude a police vehicle and drive by shooting, records show.
Documents show Henderson was on active Department of Corrections supervision at the time of the shooting.