On one summer afternoon in Washington County, Oregon, patrol cars converged on an apartment complex where witnesses heard gunfire and glass breaking. Months later, federal agents in Portland would open fire on a pickup truck they say carried two people tied to that earlier burst of violence. The public has been told the incidents are connected, although the evidence behind that link remains largely out of view.
According to a detailed account from Fox News Digital, investigators in Washington County later identified Yorlenys Betzabeth Zambrano-Contreras as a person of interest in the July 2025 apartment complex shooting. By January 2026, she was one of two people charged in a separate federal case after a U.S. Customs and Border Protection traffic stop in Portland ended in gunfire.
What Investigators Now Link Across Two Incidents
The connection between the two episodes comes from local detectives and federal authorities, not from public court findings in the July case.
Suspected Venezuelan gangster in Portland CBP attack tied to shooting at apartment complex: police pic.twitter.com/I3shplq04q
— Dyonne (@kgpnet) January 14, 2026
The Washington County Sheriff’s Office told Fox News Digital that deputies responded to reports of a shooting at an apartment complex in unincorporated Washington County in July 2025. No one was injured and the people believed to be involved had left the area before deputies arrived.
Detectives later tied that incident to Zambrano-Contreras, now a defendant in the Portland federal case, by naming her as a person of interest in the earlier gunfire, according to the sheriff’s office account reported by Fox. The agency did not describe in that report what specific evidence supported that designation.
Because investigators believed the July case might cross jurisdictional lines and involve potential federal violations, it was referred to the FBI and the U.S. Attorney’s Office, where the investigation remains open, Fox reported. That means key decisions about whether to file charges for the apartment complex shooting are now in federal hands.
Local authorities declined to elaborate on that process. The Washington County Sheriff’s Office and Portland police both declined to comment beyond prior public statements, according to Fox, and referred further questions to federal investigators who have not issued a detailed public timeline.
The July 2025 Apartment Complex Shooting
Although investigators say no one was wounded in the apartment complex shooting, residents experienced it up close.
Neighbor Justin Pitones told Portland television station KGW that he was at home when he heard breaking glass, then saw heavily armed deputies crossing his yard. In his description, relayed by Fox from KGW’s coverage, deputies appeared to be searching for armed suspects in real time.
In that KGW interview, Pitones recalled that deputies later summarized the incident for him as “a deal gone bad” and told Fox that such an event was unusual for what he considered a quiet neighborhood. His recollection offers one of the only publicly described eyewitness perspectives on the July gunfire.
Based on the account provided to Fox, investigators collected evidence at the scene and began trying to identify who was involved. It was in that context that Zambrano-Contreras was named a person of interest, a term that signals investigative attention but does not itself mean charges or a formal accusation.
There is no indication in the Fox or KGW coverage that anyone has been charged specifically for firing shots at the apartment complex. Without public charging documents or a released investigative summary, the strength of the link between the July shooting and the people later stopped by CBP in Portland remains unclear from the record that is currently available.
The Jan. 8 CBP Confrontation In Portland
The second incident involves more detailed allegations, because it has already produced federal criminal charges.
On Jan. 8 in Portland, federal border agents set up what Fox described as a targeted traffic stop. Inside a Toyota Tacoma, authorities say, were Zambrano-Contreras and her husband, identified as Luis Nino-Moncada. Both were believed by investigators to have been connected to the unsolved July shooting.
According to federal prosecutors, as described by Fox News Digital, Nino-Moncada had entered the United States without authorization in 2022 and was under a final order of removal at the time of the traffic stop. Prosecutors say he refused orders to get out of the vehicle, then reversed hard into a Border Patrol vehicle and repeatedly struck it while shifting between reverse and drive.
Fearing for their safety, at least one Border Patrol agent fired into the truck, hitting both Nino-Moncada and Zambrano-Contreras, prosecutors alleged in accounts relayed by Fox. During later questioning, Nino-Moncada allegedly admitted that he intentionally rammed the federal vehicle in an attempt to escape.
Both were taken for medical treatment for gunshot wounds. They were then charged with unspecified federal offenses related to the confrontation, according to Fox. The precise counts and any supporting affidavits were not quoted in the coverage provided.
The U.S. Department of Justice, as cited by Fox, said none of the six Border Patrol agents involved had body cameras recording during the stop. Efforts to locate other video footage, such as nearby surveillance cameras or social media recordings, were described as unsuccessful.
That leaves the government’s narrative of the stop primarily grounded in agents’ accounts and any physical evidence collected at the scene. Without video, independent verification of the rapid sequence that ended with shots fired is limited for the public and for outside observers.
Alleged Gang Ties And Criminal Background
Beyond the two incidents, prosecutors have publicly framed Zambrano-Contreras and Nino-Moncada as part of a broader criminal landscape.
In the Fox News Digital report, federal prosecutors are described as saying the pair have ties to Tren de Aragua, a Venezuelan gang that U.S. and Latin American officials have linked in recent years to violent crime and extortion across several countries. The story does not cite specific court documents that spell out those alleged ties in detail, such as the nature of the relationship or any concrete acts carried out on the gang’s behalf inside the United States.
Prosecutors also highlighted Nino-Moncada’s immigration and criminal history, according to Fox. They reported that he had previous arrests in the United States for driving under the influence and for unauthorized use of a vehicle. He had been released into the country despite a final order of removal, a decision Fox attributed to actions by the Biden administration, although the article did not break down which agencies or policies shaped that outcome.
Zambrano-Contreras, Fox reported, entered the United States without authorization in 2023 and is accused of playing an active role in a prostitution operation that investigators link to Tren de Aragua. Those allegations appear to be part of the federal case that grew out of the Portland traffic stop, but the public reporting does not reproduce the underlying charging language.
None of the allegations regarding organized crime ties or the alleged prostitution ring have been resolved in court. At the time of the Fox report, both defendants were facing charges and had not been convicted in connection with the CBP shooting or with the July 2025 gunfire at the apartment complex.
Missing Video, Limited Records
For accountability and for public understanding, the most consequential detail in the Jan. 8 case may be what is not available.
According to the Justice Department’s characterization shared with Fox, none of the six Border Patrol agents involved had body-worn cameras that captured the shooting. Officials also told Fox that investigators did not locate useful footage from fixed surveillance cameras or from recordings posted online.
That stands in contrast to several other recent federal use-of-force cases, where body camera or bystander video has played a central role in reconstructing key moments and testing official narratives. In this Portland case, at least based on the information released so far, the public has access to allegations in charging documents and secondhand summaries from prosecutors, but not to a visual record of what unfolded.
The July 2025 apartment complex shooting has even fewer public records. There is the initial law enforcement response, the neighbor’s account aired on local television and the sheriff’s office decision to refer the case to federal authorities. There is no public description, in the reporting cited here, of ballistic evidence, suspect descriptions or any recovered weapons.
What Remains Unresolved
Two episodes in Oregon are now officially linked. Investigators say the occupants of a pickup truck shot by federal agents in Portland were already on their radar because of an unresolved apartment complex shooting in Washington County months earlier. Both people face federal charges related to the Jan. 8 confrontation, and both are under scrutiny for alleged connections to a transnational gang.
Yet the July shooting remains an open investigation without filed charges, and the Portland stop that ended in gunfire has no known video record, according to the accounts reported by Fox and KGW. How investigators will ultimately substantiate the alleged gang ties, and whether federal prosecutors will move forward with charges in the apartment complex case, are questions that the available public record does not yet answer.
