A Washington state lawmaker is sharing exclusive details of the terrifying incident last weekend in which his 32-year-old son was shot near his Moses Lake home.
Rep. Tom Dent, R-Moses Lake, spoke with The Center Square Saturday, one week after his son Monty Dent was injured in a drive-by shooting.
Dent, who is serving his sixth term in the legislature, said he was notified Friday, March 14, that one person had been taken into custody in connection with the incident, but others remain at large.
“He went to Taco Bell to get some food for his family, and he started for home and there was a couple of cars acting erratic on the road,” Dent said, sharing what his son told him about the moments just before bullets riddled his vehicle along Stratford Road shortly after 8 p.m., March 8.
Dent said his son told him the car came up right behind with high beams on.
“He brake checked them and they didn’t back off, but pulled up alongside and started shooting,” said Dent. “He felt a sting but didn’t know what was happening, but then realized he was probably shot, so he got off the road and got the car stopped.”
The shooter’s vehicle took off. Dent had bullet wounds to his left arm in two places and to his back. He called 911 and help arrived quickly.
“They do have one in custody, and we have a name from police put out yesterday, but Monty thought there were four,” said Dent, who also said Moses Lake police and Grant County Sherriff’s officers are actively working the case.
A firearm was recovered with the person taken into custody and police are working to confirm if it was the gun used in the shooting.
The lawmaker shared the panic of learning about the shooting while he was on the floor of the House about 8:45 p.m. that Saturday. The phone call came from Monty’s girlfriend who was still confused about what had happened and told Dent that Monty had been in a car crash and had been shot.
Dent said the moments that followed were a flurry of fellow lawmakers and staffers offering to help as he frantically tried to get more information.
“They immediately called the governor’s office, which then went to State Patrol and Chief John Batiste called me and said, ‘I’ve got you and will take you wherever you need to go,’ and I didn’t even know where we were going,” said Dent.
Dent said Rep. Chris Corry, R-Yakima, rushed him outside to Corry’s personal vehicle and they headed to the airport.
“They would not let me drive anywhere, and they told me State Patrol already had pilots on the way to the airport,” he recalled.
Dent said his wife then notified him their son was being airlifted to Spokane and the State Patrol plane took off in a hurry.
“I got there probably ten minutes after my son got there and he was so happy to see me,” recalled Dent who shared that his son was scared because he knew he’d been shot in the back, and could end up with a permanent spinal injury.
Thankfully the bullet did not reach his spine, and Dent said the arm wounds are the worst of it.
“They did all the right things, and I can’t praise them enough in Moses Lake and in Spokane, everybody was amazing,” said Dent, referring to the medical professionals who tended to his son.
Monty went home the next day and has been recovering at his parents home.
“There were a lot of prayers sent, and I received a lot of emails and texts from other members of the legislature. And the response from the governor’s office to turn the State Patrol loose to help me was so incredible,” he said. “I really can’t say enough about the response.”
Dent said Saturday he was waiting for a detective to send him pictures of his son’s car, which was reportedly riddled with bullet holes. The vehicle is being held for evidence.
The situation could have been so much worse, given the fact Monty Dent has a baby girl who is just 13-months-old, but was thankfully not in the car. Several bullets tore through the car seat buckled in the back.
“If the baby had been in the car seat, how would that have gone?” said Dent. “That was the blessing in that he was by himself in the car.”
Dent said Moses Lake Police brought a brand-new car seat for the baby.
He said it’s unclear if the suspect in custody has any gang ties or what the motive was for the shooting, but Dent said there was another altercation that his son was not involved with, that did involve the suspect vehicle, so he suggested it could have been mistaken identity when they came upon his son’s car.
“There was another altercation with these guys that did the shooting at some store and I think maybe these guys thought he was somebody else because my son said he was never at that store, so I think it was mistaken identity,” he said.
Dent said police got a license plate number on the suspect vehicle from the altercation at the store, so that’s what led to Friday’s arrest.
Dent said once the investigation is complete and things settle down, he’s hoping the awful incident can lead to some good, somehow.
“What is the pathway to start bringing people back together with some kind of respect?” said Dent. “You read about this stuff and hear about it in the media and all of a sudden here it is in your lap. We live in a relatively conservative community where you just don’t think about this happening, but guess what, it’s here.”
