The sentencing of a Seattle man for a 2022 Kent murder was rescheduled after he refused transport from the jail to the courtroom.
Dijion Ray Taylor-Johnson had a sentencing hearing Sept. 6 at the Maleng Regional Justice Center in Kent after he pleaded guilty Aug. 20 to first-degree murder and three counts of second-degree assault. He fatally shot Reese Gainer, 23, and injured two others at the Irwin Park Apartments, 25822 110th Ave. SE. His third assault charge was a shooting in Seattle the same day as the Aug. 28, 2022 Kent shootings.
But Taylor-Johnson didn’t make it to his sentencing hearing due to a refusal of transport, according to King County Superior Court clerk’s minutes.
At the hearing, prosecutors filed a motion for reasonable force to compel Taylor-Johnson to appear for his sentencing hearing Oct. 11 in Kent. A defense attorney objected. Judge Averil Rothrock granted the state’s request for a reasonable force order.
Taylor-Johnson remains in the King County Correctional Facility in Seattle, according to jail records.
Prosecutors charged Taylor-Johnson, then 19, in October 2022. Auburn Police arrested Taylor-Johnson in September 2022 in an unrelated shooting and he was tied to the Kent case.
The shooting at the Kent apartment reportedly came as Taylor-Johnson feared a revenge shooting from a man (not Gainer) he had shot and injured earlier in the day in Seattle, according to charging papers. Taylor-Johnson said he went to the apartment that he had been asked to move out of to retrieve some of his belongings, and the man he earlier shot in Seattle was at the Kent apartment.
King County prosecutors also have charged J’Lijah Lee Garcia, 19, of Auburn, with first-degree murder and two counts of second-degree assault for the Irwin Park Aartment shooting, where at least 22 shots were fired. Garcia has a court hearing Nov. 18 and a trial date of Dec. 16. He pleaded not guilty to the charges.
During an interview with detectives, Taylor-Johnson claimed Garcia fired all of the shots.
Kent Police arrested Garcia in December 2023. Garcia remains in the King County Correctional Facility with bail set at $2.5 million, according to jail records.
When police officers arrived at the apartment, they found one man conscious outside the rear sliding glass door, according to police documents. He had been shot at least twice in the upper portion of his back. Another man had multiple gunshot wounds and was laying on the living room floor. Gainer was unconscious and laying near the other man on the living room floor. He had multiple gunshot wounds.
Gainer later died at Harborview Medical Center in Seattle. He suffered four gunshot wounds, two went through his head and caused his death, according to the King County Medical Examiner’s Office.
In addition to the Kent charges, Garcia faces two counts of drive-by shooting, one for reportedly firing shots about 90 minutes after the Kent shooting at a Safeway gas station on Rainier Avenue South in Seattle, and the other count for a shooting Aug. 5, 2022 at a gas station in the 17200 block of 140th Avenue SE in Fairwood.
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