Pendleton identify local offender as suspect in shooting that injures teen
Published 2:36 pm Tuesday, November 9, 2021
- Police stand at The Marigold Hotel on Nov. 9, 2021, following a shooting at the hotel in downtown Pendleton. The owner of the hotel plans to appeal the city’s decision to suspend its business license.
PENDLETON — The man police identified as the shooter who injured a teen Tuesday, Nov. 9, in downtown Pendleton, has convictions for child pornography.
Pendleton police arrested Steven Moses Enko, 40, of Pendleton, after the gunfire that sent a 17-year-old boy with a bullet wound to a forearm to the hospital. Pendleton police reported the injury was not life threatening.
Pendleton Police chief Chuck Byram said officers responded to the Marigold Hotel, 105 S.E. Court Ave., at around 12:40 p.m. Nov. 9, after receiving multiple 911 calls of shots fired. According to Byram, there was a “verbal altercation” and then a person at the hotel shot at a red Volkswagen Jetta on the 100 block of Southeast First Street as the occupants drove away.
The driver lost control and crashed into a utility post at the corner of South Main Street and Court Avenue. The occupants fled to a house a few hundred feet away, police said.
Police later found the occupants, including the teen who had been shot in the forearm. Medics transported him to CHI St. Anthony Hospital, Pendleton. Byram said police did not know the victim’s medical status.
After officers arrived to investigate the shooting and crash, witnesses told them the shooter still was in the hotel. Police found the suspect, Enko, hiding in the basement and arrested him without incident.
Byram said police found evidence at the scene “linking (Enko) to the shooting.”
Enko is in the Umatilla County Jail. State court records show the Umatilla County District Attorney’s Office on Nov. 10 has brought initial charges against Enko of attempted murder, second-degree assault, unlawful use of a weapon (two counts), felon in possession of a firearm and tampering with physical evidence.
Enko in 2019 faced 13 counts for the possession of child pornography. State court records show he took a plea deal, admitting guilt to two counts of first-degree encouraging child sexual abuse. He received a prison sentence of 27 months with credit for time in jail plus post-prison supervision for three years.
