The victim of a July 2 shooting in Oak Harbor is back in the hospital.
Willie Rainey, 39, was scheduled to appear in Island County Superior Court Monday in a case unrelated to the shooting, but his attorney explained he was hospitalized.
Rainey was released from the hospital last week, but suffered a relapse and was readmitted, his attorney said.
He was listed in satisfactory condition Tuesday at Harborview Medical Center in Seattle.
The alleged shooter, Shaunyae Allen, appeared in court Monday with his attorney, David Carman of Langley. Allen, 31, pleaded not guilty to charges of second-degree assault and unlawful possession of a handgun. He is being held in jail on $500,000 bail.
A conviction of the assault charge would represent a “third strike” for Allen, which would mean an automatic life sentence under the state’s persistent offender law.
Island County Prosecutor Greg Banks said the law can result in excessive punishment in some instances, but this is not one of those cases.
“Mr. Allen has twice been convicted of what the law defines as ‘most serious offenses,’” Banks said. “He assaulted people in 2011 and 2012 with deadly weapons — once with a firearm, and once with a broken beer bottle, which put a man in the intensive care unit. In this case he is alleged to have shot a man. This is not a case where I feel like the three strikes law goes too far.”
Banks said the governor has granted clemency in some cases in which a life sentence wasn’t warranted, with the concurrence of the responsible prosecutors. The legislature and others are considering refinements to the law, he said, but those proposals, if adopted, wouldn’t change its application to Allen if he is convicted.
According to the police report, Rainey told detectives he got into an argument over “girl stuff” with a man later identified as Allen — who he knew as Chi-Town and Shaun — at the All Sports Pub and Eatery just before midnight July 2. They went outside the bar to fight, Rainey said, but instead Allen ran to his car and retrieved a handgun, according to the report by Detective Lisa Rang-Powers.
Rainey claimed he told Allen he wasn’t afraid to die and ran at him to grab the gun, but Allen shot him in the chest before he got there, the report states.
Rainey then walked back into the bar and asked a friend to drive him to the hospital.
The woman told police that she agreed to drive Rainey but didn’t know he had been shot until they were on their way. She called 911 after he started sweating and his eyes rolled back into his head. She said he wouldn’t tell her who shot him.
The first officer to the scene found a gunshot entrance wound on Rainey’s upper chest and an exit wound on his back. Rainey was taken to WhidbeyHealth Medical Center and then airlifted to Harborview.
Rainey identified Allen as the shooter from a photo lineup of “six individuals all similar in appearance,” the detective wrote.
In 2011, Allen was convicted of assault in the second degree and possession of a stolen firearm. He was the target of a drive-by shooting on New Year’s Eve but then pointed a handgun at a woman he mistakenly thought was involved in the shooting.
The following year, he slashed a man in the throat during a fight at a downtown Oak Harbor nightclub. He was convicted of second-degree assault and was sentenced to two years and two months in prison.
