Spokane Teenagers Suspects In Robbery

Two Spokane Valley teenagers arrested early Tuesday in Kootenai County are suspected of robbing a Kingston convenience store at gunpoint.

Timothy C. Buchanan, 19, and Michael J. Pugh, Jr., 18, were booked into Kootenai County Jail on charges of armed robbery and aggravated assault, authorities said. They were scheduled to be moved to Shoshone County Jail on Tuesday evening to face the charges.

An undisclosed amount of cash was taken during the 3:45 a.m. robbery of Chat’s convenience store in Kingston, Shoshone County sheriff’s officials said. No one was injured.

Two men, one of whom brandished a handgun, fled the store in a white sports car after the robbery, deputies said. They were last seen driving west on Interstate 90.

Kootenai County sheriff’s deputies, alerted to the robbery by Shoshone County officers, spotted a vehicle matching the description of the getaway car near the Veterans Memorial Bridge east of Coeur d’Alene.

Officers from the Kootenai and Shoshone county sheriff’s departments and the Kellogg Police Department stopped the car east of the bridge on I-90 and arrested both occupants.

Buchanan, a former high school football standout, previously made headlines as the victim of a stabbing at the Spokane Interstate Fairgrounds. Spokane prosecutors did not charge the woman who admitted stabbing Buchanan three times, sparking a civil rights debate.

Karen Beeman, who said she stabbed Buchanan while protecting her son on Sept. 7, 1996, is fairskinned and claims Samoan ancestry. Buchanan is African American.