Police handle 4 shootings in 90 minutes

Spokane Police worked Monday to investigate four shootings that left one man dead and two injured in a 90-minute span early Sunday.

Arrested in the road rage shootings were Simon P. Cordova, 18, and 19-year-old Tommy Lee Agullo. Both are charged with two counts of first-degree assault and unlawful possession of a firearm.

Cordova and Agullo appeared Monday before District Court Judge Harold Clarke. He ordered Agullo, who witnesses said fired the shots, held on a $200,000 bond and Cordova held on a $150,000 bond.

The string of unrelated shootings began at about 12:45 a.m. when police received a call of a shooting inside a home at 4108 N. Monroe. A homeowner’s girlfriend said two-armed men forced their way into the home and confronted her boyfriend, Deputy Chief Al Odenthal said.

During that struggle with the homeowner, one of those intruders – 28-year-old Steven C. Campbell – was killed and the other, 30-year-old Simon R. Brown, fled on foot, Deputy Chief Al Odenthal said.

The case remains unsolved because it’s not clear who fired the fatal shot, Odenthal said.

Then at about 2 a.m., a homeowner in the 3000 block of East Sharp, called police after he heard several shots. He provided police a description of light-colored 1970s Chevrolet step-side pickup.

Police began looking for that truck when a few minutes later they received a call that two passengers had been shot inside a Chevrolet Geo Tracker by a man leaning out of a pickup that matched the first caller’s description.

Moments later, officers spotted a step-side Chevrolet pickup at Indiana Avenue and Lidgerwood Street. They pulled it over and detained three men, including Agullo and Cordova. Officers searched the truck and found a .410 shotgun and several shells inside the truck’s floorboard, police spokesman Dick Cottam said.

Officer Wayne Downing interviewed one of the truck’s passengers, Richard P. Reamer, who told Downing that he, Agullo and Cordova – who was driving – had been in the 3000 block of East Sharp at about 2 a.m. when Agullo fired the shotgun “in an unknown direction.”

Then a few minutes later, Cordova was driving near Ash Street and Indiana when they encountered a Geo Tracker with several friends inside.

Court documents don’t explain what happened, but Reamer told Officer Downing that Agullo “was angry over a road rage incident and the driver (Simon P. Cordova) was yelling ‘Shoot ‘em, shoot ‘em,’ ” court documents state.

Reamer said Agullo then grabbed the shotgun from the floorboard and fired it at the Geo Tracker. The blast shattered the Geo’s windshield and pellets hit one passenger in the arm and another in the back of the head, Cottam said.

Both victims required medical treatment at a local hospital for minor injuries. “We are continuing the investigation,” Odenthal said.

As officers were sorting through the road-rage shooting, they received reports of a shooting on the 5500 block of E. Commerce, Odenthal said. In that case, a house was shot but nobody was injured.

“It doesn’t appear to be the same incident,” Odenthal said. “No one was injured, so that kind of takes the back burner.”