By Thomas Clouse
Spokesman Review
SPOKANE, Wash. — Law officers investigate the scene of an officer-involved shooting at 1309 N. Skipworth Court in Spokane Valley on Wednesday.
A woman stabbed by her boyfriend and reportedly held captive at her Spokane Valley home was being consoled by neighbors Wednesday when the unthinkable happened.
The attacker, described as “homicidal” by authorities and still driving the black Mercedes convertible he’d taken from her earlier, returned to the home at 1309 N. Skipworth Court just after noon.
This time, though, Spokane Valley police were there, too.
Following a two-block car chase and quick foot pursuit, the mancircled back to the woman’s yard, where he was fatally shot by officers.
Identity of the man was being withheld by police but was expected to be released today following an autopsy. Also unclear is what prompted officers to open fire.
Although police scanner traffic indicated that the man was armed at the time of the shooting, authorities refused to say Wednesday whether any weapons were recovered with the body. All questions about the fatal encounter were referred to sheriff’s spokesman Deputy Craig Chamberlin and Spokane police spokeswoman Officer Jennifer DeRuwe, neither of whom said they knew if any weapons had been found.
“They are still doing interviews. That information should be available” today, Chamberlin said.
The incident began Wednesday morning when the woman called deputies to say that her boyfriend had stabbed her with a knife the night before, causing a superficial wound, and took her black Mercedes convertible. Neighbors said they’d heard that the man held the woman captive overnight as well.
Two deputies arrivedat the Skipworth home about 10:20 a.m. Wednesday to interview the woman about what happened. They had finished taking the information and were talking among themselves when the suspect returned at 12:08 p.m. in the Mercedes.
The deputies “knew he was homicidal, suicidal and that he had been seen in the area,” Chamberlin said. “As the two deputies were talking, he came driving through their two patrol cars. That’s when the chase started.”
Neighbor Katie Wisener saw the two deputies parked at the end of the cul-de-sac on Skipworth and she walked inside to get ready to go to work.
“The next thing I hear are really loud, screeching tires. I thought someone was crashing,” Wisener said. “And then all the cruisers came out of the cul-de-sac with lights and sirens.”
She saw the vehicle chase go west on Boone Avenue and then north, where it abruptly ended. She went back inside and heard what she thought were pops.
“I came back outside and my neighbor asked, ‘Did you just hear those gunshots?’ Then every cruiser in the county was here. They just swooped in,” she said. “I got scared because I thought the person was still on the loose.”
On nearby Pierce Road, Laurie Sheffler was watering her flowers near her pool when she saw deputies running in a field between Pierce Road and Skipworth Court.
“I saw these guys chasing somebody with their guns drawn, saying ‘Stop,’” Sheffler said. She heard shots and “ran inside the house. I was scared to death. I didn’t know who they were chasing, I just knew something bad was going on.”
Another neighbor said she was standing outside talking to the domestic violence victim after the deputies had finished questioning her about the Tuesday night assault.
“Somebody said, ‘He’s coming back’ and the deputies took off after him,” the neighbor said. “We expected him to be stopped right away because they were right behind him.”
The neighbor heard sirens for a few moments and “then we saw two police cars come down the street, screeching to a halt. They got out and yelled, ‘Where is he?’ (The assault victim) said ‘I don’t know.’ I just ran back into my house. The police ran into the backyard. After a few minutes I heard the shots.
“It was very frightening,” the neighbor said.
DeRuwe said the suspect abandoned the car on Pierce Road and ran from deputies. “He was confronted in the backyard of his girlfriend’s house ... and he was shot.”
But she didn’t know how many deputies were involved, how many shots were fired or whether the suspect threatened them.
“I don’t know the specifics of the confrontation,” DeRuwe said.
The deputies immediately started CPR following the shooting, but the man was pronounced dead when he was transported to an area hospital.
The neighbor offered her condolences to both the deputies who fired the shots and the families of those involved. “I did talk to (the assault victim). I gave her a hug and told her everything would be OK. It was a scary situation.”
Copyright 2012 Spokane Spokesman-Review