11th Tacoma Homicide of 2022: Alin Valencia-Miranda
On the last night of 22-year-old Alin Valencia-Miranda’s life she and her boyfriend had dinner with two friends at a Mexican restaurant. Their Saturday night stretched into Sunday morning. It was March 13, 2022. After dinner they went to Rogers Park where Alin’s boyfriend fired off a single gunshot in the air at a roadside memorial near East Roosevelt. While at the roadside memorial in their Lexus, a Scion pulled up with a 23-year-old driver who also knew the subject of the memorial. The occupants of the cars talked. There was no sign from the surveillance cameras that there was any problem. According to the 23-year-old, Alin’s boyfriend offered him cocaine. Aware of the cameras, the 23-year-old driver suggested they go somewhere else.
A little after 4:00am, the Lexus and the Scion parked in the 3800 block East Howe Street each turned their headlights off. About twenty-five seconds after both cars stopped, gunfire was heard. Both Alin Valencia-Miranda and her boyfriend are shot in the chest while sitting in the Lexus. Alin’s boyfriend calls 9-1-1, but first responders initially have trouble locating the victims until they trace the call to East Howe Street. When police arrived Alin Valencia-Miranda was dead in the driver’s seat and her boyfriend was critically wounded.
Alin Valencia-Miranda is the eleventh Tacoma homicide of 2022. Her boyfriend survives the attack. The 23-year-old driver of the Scion is arrested days later and charged with the murder of Alin Valencia-Miranda and the attempted murder of her boyfriend. The 23-year-old driver claims it was a miscommunication with the passenger in his car that led to that passenger shooting Alin and her boyfriend.
It is unfortunately all too common that a homicide involves the combination of drugs and firearms. Guns are weapons that require skill and accuracy to use effectively. But your skills and accuracy are impaired by drug use. Ideally, guns and drugs should be mutually exclusive. If you’re using one, you really shouldn’t be in the presence of the other. The results of failing to keep these two things apart can be read in far too many Tacoma homicides.
I wasn’t able to find much information about Alin Valencia-Miranda’s life. She graduated from Clover Park High School. Her Facebook page has photos of her with two young children. What I can say for certain is that this one night of misadventure forever shattered part of a family. And that Alin Valencia-Miranda is much more than how her story ended.
The comment section as always is reserved for those who knew Alin and want to share thoughts or memories of her. If you’d rather not leave a comment, you can also email me by clicking here.
- Jack Cameron
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