Fights At Bar Lead To Two Arrests

Spokane police arrested two Idaho men outside Swackhammer’s early Wednesday after they broke up more than a dozen fights at the North Side bar.

Shawn K. Dirden, 22 and David A. Miyatake, 24, both of Moscow, Idaho, were arrested on charges of assaulting police officers and resisting arrest. Both were booked into Spokane County Jail.

About 1:20 a.m., the officers were called to the bar at 21 E. Lincoln Road just off Division to handle a fight between two patrons and several employees.

When police arrived, a crowd of several hundred people was outside the bar’s main doors, and police found a number of fights under way. A few people in the crowd also began threatening the officers.

Police called for reinforcements, and the officers finally broke up a dozen or more fights. Police said many in the crowd were obviously drunk, and Swackhammer’s employees finally declared the business closed to disperse the crowd.

Swackhammer’s manager Kelly Wakefield said it was unusual to have so much trouble on what’s typically a quiet night at the bar’s New Year’s Eve celebration.

“We don’t normally have fights but last night there was a group of five or six guys making the trouble,” said Wakefield. “They just really had attitudes. It was a sad way to end the night.”

The bar, he said, closes at 1:30 a.m., so the fights did not cut short 1997’s first hours of fun.

, DataTimes