Boy Held In Attack On Police Teenager Allegedly Wielding Pocketknife Charged Officer

The teenage son of the woman who heads Spokane’s community policing programs was ordered kept in custody Thursday after a judge called him a “danger to himself and the community.”

Seventeen-year-old Ryan Steele is accused of attacking a police officer with a pocketknife.

The April 30 incident is similar to one two weeks earlier in which a policeman shot and killed a 41-year-old knife-wielding man.

Steele, son of Spokane COPS coordinator Cheryl Steele, charged and threw the knife at an officer inside his home in the West Central neighborhood, according to police.

The officer being attacked subdued the teenager with pepper spray instead of using his gun. Afterward, Steele was arrested and booked in the Spokane County Juvenile Detention Center.

Steele, who has no prior juvenile record, faces two counts of second-degree attempted assault-domestic violence and one count of first-degree attempted assault on a police officer.

During a hearing Thursday, Superior Court Commissioner Royce Moe found Steele to be a threat to himself and others. Moe cited the boy’s past drug use and lack of cooperation with juvenile detention officers.

Cheryl Steele called officers to report that her son was threatening her and her husband, Jeffrey Steele, with a knife, police spokesman Dick Cottam said.

The first officer on the scene ordered the teenager, who is 6 foot 5, to drop the weapon. When Ryan Steele refused, the officer hit him with pepper spray, Cottam said.

Steele was hit with a second burst of spray when he charged the officer moments later. The boy threw the knife, missing the officer, according to Cottam.

Steele then scuffled with the policeman, prompting another officer to jump in. The teenager kicked and butted the officers before being placed in leg restraints. Cottam said one of the officers required medical treatment for a back injury.

The relative restraint shown by the officers stands in contrast to what happened on April 15.

That’s when Officer Rick Dabrow, responding to a domestic violence call, shot and killed Joseph R. Lawson in his north Spokane home. Lawson refused Dabrow’s orders to drop a 15-inch knife, then charged the officer with the weapon.

Cottam said the difference in the size of the knives wielded by Lawson and Steele is one reason police responded differently.

Officers didn’t give preferential treatment to Steele, Cottam said.

But a Spokane police sergeant disagreed.

“I’d hesitate for a split second if a family member or a co-worker charged,” said the sergeant, who asked not to be identified. “That kid’s real lucky to be alive.”

The sergeant said a pocketknife in the hands of an attacker poses just as deadly a threat as a bigger blade.

“A knife is a knife, and if you don’t use more excessive force than pepper spray, you very well could end up with a knife, small or large, in your head.”

As was the case with Lawson, when Steele charged, the officer attempted to put furniture and other barriers between himself and the teenager, Cottam said.

“Not everybody who is going to have a knife in a domestic assault is going to get shot. If that were the case, there would be a lot more dead people out there,” Cottam said.

He added: “Each case is handled differently and is up to the discretion of the investigating officer.”

Cheryl Steele declined to comment Thursday.

As a volunteer, she spearheaded efforts to open Spokane’s first neighborhood COPS substation after two West Central girls were abducted in 1991. She is now a full-time Police Department employee, Cottam said.

, DataTimes