Suspect in assault arrested

A Cheney man was arrested without incident on suspicion of felony assault Monday morning, after Spokane County sheriff’s deputies surrounded his house for almost four hours.

Dennis W. Alnutt, 57, refused to answer his telephone for hours as deputies hid behind trees and encircled the home at 19716 S. Cheney-Plaza Road. When deputies used a bullhorn and told Alnutt to leave the home at about 10:15 a.m., he complied immediately, sheriff’s spokesman Cpl. Dave Reagan said.

The Monday incident began at 2 a.m. in the home on Cheney-Plaza Road, Reagan said, where Alnutt put a handgun to the head of his 46-year-old live-in girlfriend, threatened to kill her and then hit her on the forehead with the gun, according to the woman’s daughter.

“He is in custody. He is cooperating,” Reagan said of Alnutt. “We’ve got to get his story about what happened.”

Sheriff’s officials booked Alnutt into jail on a charge of second-degree assault. It’s the third time deputies have responded to trouble with the same couple in less than two years, Reagan said.

On March 29, 2003, Alnutt shot and killed Michael L. Mitchell Sr., 60, at a home in the 23200 block of South Cross Road, Reagan said. However, sheriff’s detectives interviewed Alnutt and later released him.

At the time, Alnutt and the same woman were living together in the home on South Cross Road. Mitchell, the woman’s former boyfriend, came over to the home at 11:30 p.m. and Alnutt shot him in the chest with a .357-caliber pistol.

“Alnutt raised a self-defense issue and the Spokane County Prosecutor’s Office subsequently declined to prosecute the case,” Reagan said in a press release. “The pistol used in the homicide was only recently returned to Alnutt.”

In the Monday incident, the victim told deputies that she and Alnutt argued in the kitchen of the home on Cheney-Plaza and that he struck her in the head with the pistol and threatened her life, Reagan said.

“She told him, ‘That won’t work for me. I have to baby-sit tonight,’ ” Reagan said of the victim’s statement to Alnutt.

He then drove his 46-year-old girl-friend to her daughter’s home in the 2900 block of North Hogan in Spokane and left her there, Reagan said. Deputies weren’t alerted to the incident until the victim’s daughter called Crime Check at 6:05 a.m.

The daughter told deputies that Alnutt assaulted her mother and said “he was going to try to force some sort of confrontation with law enforcement,” Reagan said.

“When we have that information, we try to make sure that doesn’t happen,” he said. “I can’t tell you why we didn’t get the call until 6:05.”

Thinking the assault had just occurred, deputies tried to arrive at the Cheney-Plaza Road address before Alnutt could get home. However, his Ford Taurus was already outside when deputies arrived at 6:25 a.m. Reagan said.

Officers from the Cheney Police Department, Eastern Washington University Police and Washington State Patrol helped establish a perimeter around the home. Sheriff’s officials took over as soon as they could get negotiators and deputies to surround the home and enough volunteers to close Cheney-Plaza Road, Reagan said.

“We had a lot of people here because it’s swampy behind the home and the timber made surrounding it a little awkward,” Reagan said. “We could see him coming to the slider, looking out. But he wouldn’t answer the phone.”

When deputies tried the bullhorn, Alnutt walked out.

Reagan said deputies responded to the same home last February for a report of domestic violence. At that time, Alnutt was accused of assaulting the same woman, who suffered only minor injuries Monday.

“He was threatening to hurt himself. Once we got everybody out, we just backed off and left him there,” Reagan said of the February incident.

Deputies didn’t follow the same procedure Monday because of the report about trying to instigate a confrontation with law enforcement, Reagan said. “This time, we didn’t feel comfortable backing off.”

Later Monday, the 46-year-old victim’s daughter arrived at the Cheney-Plaza Road home with a moving van and four men to pick up what they said was their mother’s property, Reagan said.

“We only allowed them to get those items they need to live elsewhere until there is a court order,” he said. “We don’t know who owns what. We referred them to domestic violence court.”