Adam Shanks

The Spokane Police Guild and city of Spokane have waited nearly four years to reach a new labor agreement.

Spokane police on Friday morning were at the scene of a body found in the 1600-block of East South Riverton Avenue, which runs along the south bank of the Spokane River. 

In a scathing rebuke on Thursday, numerous local elected officials condemned the armed citizens who have stood guard outside businesses during Spokane’s recent protests.

Spokane Police welcomed members of the media to its training facility on Thursday to demonstrate how, and in what circumstances, they use force to restrain a person. 

Spokane City Council President Breean Beggs is seeking multiple changes to policies that would impact how officers engage with protestors who, at the moment, are coming face-to-face with the very police departments they’re seeking to reform or dismantle.

In interviews with The Spokesman-Review on Monday, many officials endorsed a community-centered approach and reforms to policing but stopped short of advocating the department be disbanded.

In the wake of protests over police violence and the death of George Floyd last week – and ahead of continued protests planned for Sunday – Kurtis Robinson, president of Spokane’s chapter of the NAACP, and Spokane Police Chief Craig Meidl sat down for a one-on-one conversation on Friday with The Spokesman-Review as a fly on the wall.

The Spokane Police Ombudsman will review more than a dozen complaints filed about officer conduct in the wake of Sunday’s protests.

Spokane firefighters quickly extinguished an underground fire on Riverside Avenue on Friday, but not before it cut off power to multiple nearby businesses and traffic signals.

An architect of controversial police training, aimed at readying officers for the moment they kill someone and how they’ll react to it, is scheduled to hold a seminar for Spokane-area officers in October. Plans for the seminar have come under scrutiny in the wake of George Floyd’s killing.

The Spokane Police Department released on Thursday body camera footage of a March arrest that has received renewed and widespread attention in the wake of George Floyd’s death in Minneapolis.

The Spokane Police Department is reviewing a March arrest that reminded the woman who reported it of the arrest that resulted in George Floyd’s death: a man in distress telling officers he can’t breathe, and police on top of him.

Law enforcement officials and leaders of Spokane’s Black community blamed Sunday night’s rioting, looting and property damage on outside agitators who “hijacked” what had been a day of mostly peaceful protests. But the scope of the involvement of organizers outside Spokane remains difficult to quantify, and police on Monday downplayed the presence of far-right agitators and militia members who roamed the downtown core with rifles and body armor.

Eager to emerge from their quarantine closures, public libraries in Spokane County want to offer patrons the option of curbside pickup but are waiting on Gov. Jay Inslee to approve their plans.

Even as Spokane County moves forward through Gov. Jay Inslee’s phased reopening plan, the Spokane Regional Health District is continuing its efforts to prevent the spread of COVID-19 in homeless shelters.

After space constraints forced it to turn people away from its family warming center, Catholic Charities opened a larger, temporary homeless shelter at Gonzaga Prep on Friday.

The National Weather Service is forecasting near-record high temperatures in Spokane on Saturday, followed by the threat of severe thunderstorms in Central and Eastern Washington late Saturday afternoon and into the evening.

In an executive order issued Thursday, Mayor Nadine Woodward established the Restaurant and Retail Program, which eases the city’s regulations on how and when a restaurant or retailer can expand onto a neighboring sidewalk or parking lot.

Spokane Mayor Nadine Woodward implored Gov. Jay Inslee and the state Department of Health to allow the county to enter Phase 2 of the reopening plan. Now that it’s entered phase 2, she’s imploring Spokane residents to make sure the county stays there.

The starting cost of an ambulance ride in the city of Spokane will increase 28% under a new one-year agreement approved on Thursday.

The mayor and members of the Spokane City Council would receive a marginal raise in 2022 under a tentative plan approved on Tuesday.

With its staff already dwindling, the county’s Emergency Operations Center will soon dissolve, leaving a looser structure of government officials, business leaders and public health experts in its wake to steer the regional COVID-19 response.