Desert Hot Springs gang member sentenced in drive-by shooting

Desert Hot Springs gang member convicted of trying to kill another gang member was sentenced today to 18 years and six months in prison. William Benjamin Washington, a reputed member of the 12th Street Mafia gang, was convicted in April of attempted voluntary manslaughter, assault with a deadly weapon and participating in a criminal street gang in the Feb. 14, 2011, drive-by shooting of Palm Springs resident Devian Clayton in Desert Hot Springs. Washington shot at Clayton while the victim was with two other men in front of a Desert Hot Springs apartment complex in the 13600 block of Ocotillo Road. Clayton, a member of the Gateway Posse Crip gang in Palm Springs, was shot in the buttocks and in one hand, according to the prosecution. At today's sentencing hearing, Washington and his attorney, Jose Rojo, said Washington was defending his young daughter, who was with Washington when he was confronted by Gateway members earlier that day. "He felt like he was defending his daughter," Rojo argued before Riverside County Superior Court Judge David B. Downing handed down the sentence. Washington, who asked to address the court, said that "there's things in the gang world you just don't do." "Any man in this room would do what I did ... yes, sir, I'm guilty, but if I could turn back the hands of time I'd do it again," Washington said. Downing told Washington he agreed that the Gateway members took a "cheap shot" before the shooting. "The problem is you didn't defend your daughter at that time, you went back later ... if you called 911 it wouldn't have happened, but it did -- you were angry," Downing said. Deputy District Attorney Kristi Kirk argued that Washington had sent text messages containing phrases such as "(expletive) Gateway" and that the alleged confrontation that happened when Washington's daughter was present happened earlier in the day. "It wasn't just a sporadic instance ... he did plan to go down there and shoot," Kirk argued. Downing also denied Rojo's request to strike the gang allegation. "The court thinks this was a gang shooting in every sense of the word," Downing said. One of the men with Clayton when he was shot told authorities that Clayton and Washington had an altercation at a Palm Springs street fair earlier that week, according to the prosecution's trial brief. "He informed officers that the defendant was specifically aiming at Clayton," the document stated. Detectives found bullet holes in the Ocotillo Road residence and gunshot residue in Washington's handgun, according to the trial brief.