Police shoot, kill man in northeast Spokane

Jim Camden / The Spokesman-Review

Spokane Police shot and killed a man after he stabbed an officer this morning in northeast Spokane, witnesses say.

The shooting, shortly before 9 a.m., occurred after police received reports of a man trying to break into one residence, then assaulting a woman after breaking into another residence, where he also stabbed a dog, according to investigators from the Spokane County Sheriff’s Department.

The female officer who was stabbed is being treated at a local hospital, and the injured resident was taken to Holy Family Hospital. Investigators have not yet revealed their conditions. SpokAnimal is searching for the dog, a black pit bull, who ran away after being stabbed.

The events occurred over several blocks west-southwest of the Northeast Community Center, said Sgt. Dave Reagan, sheriff’s department spokesman.

The first call to police was from a woman in the 1200 block of East Gordon. She reported that a man with a skateboard was trying to kick in her door but had left without gaining entry.

Several minutes later, police received a report from the 1300 block of East Glass, where a woman said she had been hit by an intruder with a skateboard.

Michael Baesman was asleep in the basement of the house when he heard Tara Tanner, 34, yelling, “Michael, Michael, please come help me. There’s someone in the house.”

Baesman said when he got upstairs, a man he had never seen before pulled out a large knife, possibly a butcher or kitchen knife.

The man never said anything, even after Baesman asked what he was doing.

Baesman said he, Tanner and two others who were in the home ran into the fenced backyard.

When they tried to climb the fence, it broke and Tanner fell, cutting her leg, Baesman said.

While she was on the ground, the assailant beat her several times with his skateboard, Baesman said.

A black female pit bull then ran toward the assailant, who stabbed her in the back, according to owner Vince Smith, who is Tanner’s son and was one of the occupants of the house. He said Molly, who has white on her neck and chest, ran away. “I’m just hoping she’s all right,” Smith said.

The assailant then ran about five blocks down Courtland Avenue, just west of Napa, where police tried to stop a man walking down the street carrying a skateboard and a knife, Reagan said.

After the man stabbed the policewoman, officers shot him several times, Baesman said.

Investigators don’t yet know the man’s identity or age.

Details of the series of incidents are still unfolding. “It’s been kind of a crazy event,” Reagan said.

Al Piper, who lives with his wife about two blocks from where police confronted the suspect, said they heard a noise that sounded like firecrackers about 8:30 a.m. “The dogs went wild,” Piper said.

Candy Reichman, who lives across street from where the man was shot, said she was sitting in her living room and talking on the phone when she heard loud noises that she assumed were gunshots.

“I opened my front door and saw the body and hoped it was a Taser” that caused him to be on the ground, Reichman said.

Because it was an officer-involved shooting, Spokane police invoked the protocol that turns over the investigation to the sheriff’s department.

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