Woman’S Lawsuit Claims She Was Held Illegally Spokane Police Also Accused Of Injuring Dog During Drug Raid

A Spokane woman is suing the Police Department, claiming she was illegally arrested and her dog injured during an unsuccessful drug raid two years ago.

Lawyers for Kimberly Bates filed the suit in Spokane County Superior Court last week. Bates, 27, is seeking unspecified damages.

An attorney for the city said police officers who conducted the raid acted appropriately and that the claim has no merit.

“What they did was legal,” said Rocky Treppiedi, assistant city attorney.

The suit arises from a 1997 predawn police search at the house of Bates’ boyfriend, defense attorney Robert Critchlow of Spokane.

Bates spent the night of May 4, 1997, at Critchlow’s home, according to court documents.

About 4 a.m. the next day, police officers awakened the couple and asked for permission to search the north Spokane house. They were looking for a marijuana grow operation, the lawsuit states.

Critchlow, who ran unsuccessfully for District Court judge in 1994, told the police he had no marijuana in the house and that he would not let them search at that hour.

The officers then locked Critchlow and Bates in separate police cars while they awaited a search warrant. They also restrained the dog, named Tyson.

That’s standard police practice, Treppiedi said.

“They did what they call `freezing the scene’ until the warrant arrived,” he said. “Such police practices are commonplace and have been upheld as constitutional.”

But Bates claims police went over the line.

At one point, officers escorted the lifelong Spokane resident, who was barefoot, handcuffed and in her night clothes, to a nearby restaurant so she could use the restroom, the suit states.

Bates claims she was in plain view of restaurant patrons at the time.

According to the lawsuit, officers also made “gratuitous, demeaning and threatening” comments to Bates while she was in custody, like, “Why are you going with this loser?” and “Mr. Lawyer’s going down.”

Bates also alleges her dog was injured in the incident.

Rather than allowing her to take her dog home or to a nearby truck, “police pushed plaintiff aside, and with guns drawn, secured the dog with wire chokers causing damage to the dog’s neck which necessitated subsequent veterinarian treatment,” Bates says in the suit.

Bates and Critchlow were released nearly five hours later.

They were not charged because police found no evidence of criminal activity during the search.