MOSES LAKE - About 15 family members and friends of 26-year-old Guadalupe Sanchez gathered donations along Broadway Avenue yesterday.

Sanchez was reportedly shot in the head while driving on Highland Drive early Saturday morning and died Sunday after being transported to a Spokane hospital, according to police.

While Moses Lake Police believe Sanchez had gang ties, his family says he had been trying to put that life behind him and may have been the target of retaliation from members of his former gang.

"He was a good guy and was trying to stay out of trouble," said Sanchez's cousin, Enrique Gonzalez, who came up from California to be with his family. "He just got caught up in neighborhood drama - wrong place at the wrong time."

Sanchez leaves behind an 8-year-old daughter according to Sanchez's younger brother Adolfo Gutierrez, one of the deceased man's five siblings.

Gutierrez drove up from his home in the Tri-Cities to help his family collect funeral donations Tuesday and try to make sense of his brother's death.

"It happened all of a sudden," he said. "He was trying to sort his life out. He and his girlfriend had gotten a place together."

According to Gutierrez and other family members, Sanchez was determined to be brain dead when he arrived at a Spokane hospital after the shooting, and the family had to give doctors clearance to pull the plug.

But their difficult decision resulted positive outcomes, said Gutierrez. Several of his brother's organs - including the heart and kidneys ?- were donated, a gift doctors reportedly said could save seven lives.

A funeral service has not yet been arranged for Sanchez, according to his younger sister, Esmerelda Nava.

She too believes the shooting may have been retaliation, but says her brother's death is where the killing should stop.

"The people who did this should step up to what they did and go behind bars," she said. "Nobody else should lose their family member. It's an ugly feeling."

Moses Lake Police Chief Dean Mitchell said the shooting investigation is ongoing and witnesses are still being interviewed. Police are asking anyone with potential information to call 509-764-3887.