Injured woman says boyfriend didn’t assault her

A woman who was hospitalized Monday with a broken leg and other injuries says her boyfriend accidentally struck her with a car and should not have been charged with first-degree domestic assault.

Valerie A. Gordon, 38, said she and her boyfriend, 31-year-old David Gray, were trying to escape from another couple who were camped with them behind a business in the 2900 block of North Division Street.

Everyone in the group had been drinking and using crack cocaine, and Gray was intoxicated, according to Gordon. She said a dispute arose between the two couples, and she and Gray decided to leave in a car she had borrowed from someone else, but the other couple objected to being left stranded.

Gordon said Gray started the car, and the man from the other couple – whom she knew only as Jesse – tried to get in the car before she could join Gray. She said Gray “zoomed past” Jesse when he got close, and she ran between two trees to intercept the car.

The trees may have obscured Gray’s view, Gordon said, and his foot apparently slipped from the brake to the accelerator when he attempted to stop for her. The car struck Gordon and knocked her down.

“It definitely was not on purpose,” she said from her hospital bed at Deaconess Medical Center.

“She has maintained from the beginning that it was an accident,” Spokane police Detective Stephanie Barkley agreed. “However, I have a witness who said that they (Gordon and Gray) had been arguing and that it appeared to be intentional.”

Barkley said state law requires police to seek charges when they have probable cause, such as the statements given by the couple who were camped with Gordon and Gray.