Police Department Holding Open House

The Spokane Police Department will demonstrate aspects of its diverse job Saturday during a day-long open house.

The event will run from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. at the police training center in east Spokane. The public is asked to park at the Spokane Community College lot on East Mission and ride free shuttle buses to the event.

The SWAT team will perform live-fire demonstrations, police dogs will “take down” a volunteer posing as a felony suspect, and explosives experts will show off “Elvis,” a remote-controlled robot used to defuse bombs.

Officers from the department’s mounted patrol will be on hand with a horse, and people will be able to sit behind the wheel of patrol cars.

Various investigative units will have displays, and Chief Terry Mangan will be there to answer questions.

The open house is free.

Two teenagers arrested

Spokane police arrested two 16-year-old boys for firing a pellet handgun at parked cars and residents of an apartment complex.

A bystander stopped a police patrol car on Riverside downtown just after midnight on July 12 and told officers someone had just shot out the rear window of his car, police spokesman Dick Cottam said.

Police immediately located the suspect’s vehicle downtown and interviewed the six people in the car. Four passengers in the car identified two of their companions as the shooters after discovering the gun, Cottam said.

Police also learned that the boys fired shots at several people sitting outside their apartment on a deck in the 4800 block of N. Nelson. Shots were also fired at six parked vehicles on the North Side, Cottam said.

Police booked the two boys into juvenile detention on second-degree malicious mischief. The four other youths in the car were released.

, DataTimes