Shawn Vestal

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Opinion >  Column

Shawn Vestal: Schools playing long odds with the return of students

UPDATED: Thu., Sept. 3, 2020

The bets are laid.

Opinion >  Column

Shawn Vestal: Prosecutor’s semantic battle against equity undermines efforts to set a better course for justice

UPDATED: Thu., Sept. 3, 2020

Two years ago, the investigative news organization ProPublica looked into the algorithms used by courts to assign risk levels to criminal defendants.

Opinion >  Column

Shawn Vestal: Tale of Bundy and his melon highlights this sick, but silly, season in conspiracy world

UPDATED: Thu., Sept. 3, 2020

It’s been a season of extra pungency in the pastures of the alt-reality-right.

Opinion >  Column

Shawn Vestal: Professors and cowboys and nurses – obituaries tell community story

UPDATED: Thu., Sept. 3, 2020

One obituary is a portrait of a life. Several obituaries, taken together, form a portrait of a community.

Opinion >  Column

Shawn Vestal: Wake up and help put an end to the nightmare, congresswoman

UPDATED: Thu., Sept. 3, 2020

Upon winning her umpteenth nonrigged mail election last week, Rep. Cathy McMorris Rodgers – or perhaps a tipsy aide – took to Twitter to thank voters and proclaim: “Together, we will find the courage to dream again.”

Opinion >  Column

Shawn Vestal: The number of Maxeys grows to four, in the office Carl built

UPDATED: Thu., Sept. 3, 2020

As an undergrad, Bevan Maxey didn’t start out thinking he’d go into law.

Opinion >  Column

Shawn Vestal: The vandals tried, but the Black Lives Matter mural remains unscathed

UPDATED: Thu., Sept. 3, 2020

I avoided it for days.

News

Shawn Vestal: Tales of COVID-19, and the various ways it affects people

UPDATED: Thu., Sept. 3, 2020

A friend from high school with a brutal headache and fever for days.

Opinion >  Column

Shawn Vestal: Pandemic creates paradox – we must open schools but we can’t open schools

UPDATED: Sat., Aug. 1, 2020

The schools have to reopen.

Opinion >  Column

Shawn Vestal: Looking to make a trail of bread crumbs out of Spokane stories

UPDATED: Thu., Sept. 3, 2020

What if Spokane did a better job of telling its stories?

News

Shawn Vestal: Jobless in Spokane and watching Congress, hoping for the best

UPDATED: Thu., Sept. 3, 2020

Ryan Sparks is watching the Senate debates about coronavirus relief closely.

Shawn Vestal: The mayor’s smart, timely homeless plan arrives as a welcome surprise

UPDATED: Thu., Sept. 3, 2020

I did not see this coming.

News >  Spokane

Shawn Vestal: Chris Bovey helps to start fundraising effort to restore fallen Ming Wah sign

Mon., July 20, 2020

The historic Ming Wah sign fell during a windstorm in April. Now, with the help of local artist Chris Bovey, owner Kam Kwong is trying to raise the money to put it back up.

Shawn Vestal: How to be a good ally? Get uncomfortable

UPDATED: Thu., Sept. 3, 2020

Roberta Wilburn says one of the most important things we can do to understand people is listen to their stories.

Shawn Vestal: The speeding cop was bad enough, but ticket added insult to injury

UPDATED: Thu., Sept. 3, 2020

More than three months ago, a Spokane police officer racing for no good reason at 65 miles per hour down the steep pitch of Lincoln Street – where the lower South Hill plunges into downtown – rammed into a car trying to cross Lincoln at Fifth Avenue.

Opinion >  Column

Shawn Vestal: We’re doing our worst – literally – to make this an unnecessarily awful summer

Sun., July 12, 2020

When it came to coronavirus precautions in Spokane County, we lost our minds on Memorial Day weekend.

News >  Spokane

Shawn Vestal: Foundation named for slain Pullman woman moves ahead on campus safety initiatives

UPDATED: Thu., Sept. 3, 2020

It’s a strange time to be thinking of normal times and “normal” problems on college campuses.

Opinion >  Column

Shawn Vestal: White-grievance backlash is wrong answer to moment’s demands

Wed., July 8, 2020

My fellow white people: We have a terrible hearing problem.

Opinion >  Column

Shawn Vestal: Rejection of Guild deal a great step, but far from an ending

Wed., July 1, 2020

The unanimous Spokane City Council rejection of the contract proposed with the Police Guild was a victory for police accountability and for democracy itself.

Shawn Vestal: There may be a tool to block paramilitary demonstrations — and the Supreme Court has sanctioned it

UPDATED: Thu., Sept. 3, 2020

The armed yahoo brigades that have shown up at Black Lives Matter demonstrations across the Inland Northwest have so far been little but absurd sideshows.

Shawn Vestal: Firing of officer who kicked handcuffed Black man sets the right standard for conduct — a higher one

UPDATED: Thu., Sept. 3, 2020

The courts look at whether an officer acted reasonably when using force against people on the streets. Spokane Police Chief Craig Meidl, and at least one other higher-up in the department, employed a different, correct standard when they fired an officer who kicked a handcuffed Black man in the groin. 

News

Shawn Vestal: It’s a long way from our city charter’s claims to our handcuffed system of police oversight

UPDATED: Thu., Sept. 3, 2020

Section 129 of the Spokane City Charter is where the sunshine of optimism shines most brightly with regard to police oversight.

Shawn Vestal: The road to true reform starts with limiting the authority of police unions

UPDATED: Thu., Sept. 3, 2020

Spokane’s police officers are four years overdue for a raise.

News

Shawn Vestal: Culture underlies problems with policing and accountability, and the solutions have to come from outside

Tue., June 16, 2020

Midway into a new ombudsman's report on the now-infamous profanity-laced rant of a still happily employed Spokane police officer, a word appears that is crucial in considering where we’ve been, where we are, and where we going with police and accountability.Culture.

Opinion >  Column

Shawn Vestal: Spokane’s struggling hospitals receive federal relief, look to uncertain days ahead

Sun., June 7, 2020

The virus threatening the health of the population is also threatening the health care system. In Spokane – where a large part of our population relies on government health insurance and a large part of our workforce is employed in health care – that means a lot of added pressure on hospitals that have already been losing money.