Suspect booked after three men cut with knife
In the space of an hour Sunday morning, Spokane police dealt with three stabbed men and two victims of a drive-by shooting.
The first incident, at 2:25 a.m., occurred in the 500 block of South Howard Street. Four people told police they had been driving in the area when a man running west on Sixth Avenue shouted racial epithets against African-Americans.
The running man, identified by police as Charles W. Mervyn-Archdall, was white, as were the people in the car.
One of the men stepped out of the car and asked Mervyn-Archdall, 45, what was wrong, police spokesman Dick Cottam said in a news release. Mervyn-Archdall allegedly charged toward the man, grabbed him and cut him on the side of his neck.
Two others in the car told police they came to their companion’s assistance and also were cut in the struggle. The fourth person in the car wasn’t involved.
Cottam said officers found a pocketknife handle and a broken knife blade with blood on it in Mervyn-Archdall’s clothing. Police booked him into jail on three counts of first-degree assault.
The victim with the neck wound was treated and released. The other two victims were admitted to a hospital, where one was in serious and the other in satisfactory condition.
An hour later, officers responded to a drive-by shooting at Crestline Street and Marietta Avenue.
They found two men on the ground – one with a gunshot wound in a leg, the other with a gunshot wound to his torso, Cottam said.
The victims told police they had been on a walk when a white four-door car, possibly a newer Kia, passed them. The driver went around the block and then drove up and slowed down.
The victims said the driver, a black male in his early 20s, pointed a handgun at them and fired several shots through an open passenger-side window. The shooter drove away after both men had been hit, Cottam said.
The victims said a white woman in her early 20s was in the front seat with the shooter, and he fired past her.
The victims underwent surgery, and both were listed in satisfactory condition.
Anyone with information on the shooter is asked to call Crime Check at (509) 456-2233.