Her friends remember Beverly Saruwatari as a model citizen – an honored public school teacher, a goodwill ambassador on Spokane’s Nishinomiya Sister City Committee and a devoted single mother.

She died suddenly one year ago today of a brain hemorrhage – 20 days after a confrontation with police in the doorway of her South Hill home.

Her arrest and unexpected death stunned her family, fellow teachers and friends.

They soon learned that – like the 2006 police encounter with Otto Zehm – it appeared officers with incomplete or inaccurate information about a criminal suspect confronted a law-abiding citizen, and the situation went sideways.

Read the rest of Bill Morlin's story here.

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