Jury acquits man who faced charges of dragging deputy

A jury Tuesday acquitted a man who was accused of assaulting a Spokane County sheriff’s deputy with a car.

The jury took two hours at the end of a two-day trial to acquit Corey Dejuan Allen, 35, of one count of first-degree assault.

Allen would have faced a standard range of 171/3 to 23 years in prison if convicted.

Allen was accused of deliberately dragging Deputy Sean Walter with a car and trying to slam him into a chain-link fence while Walter was trying to remove Allen from the vehicle Jan. 7. The incident occurred on Fifth Avenue, near Carnahan Street, in Spokane Valley.

Walter was nearby and responded to a call for medics to check on the welfare of a man and woman who appeared to be unconscious in a parked car. He testified that the improperly parked car was blocking traffic and that he had to knock on the window several times to rouse Allen, who was in the driver’s seat, and a woman in the front passenger seat.

Allen claimed to have no identification and gave a false name, Walter said. The deputy said he asked Allen to confirm the name he had given, but Allen said he needed a cigarette and quickly reached into his pocket.

Walter said he feared Allen was reaching for a gun and ordered him to remove his hand from the pocket. A wallet containing a driver’s license tumbled out, Walter said, and he ordered Allen out of the car.

The deputy said Allen began driving away, so he grabbed the shoulder of Allen’s leather coat to try to pull him out of the vehicle. He said he jogged beside the car at first and, when he was about to turn loose, Allen steered sharply left toward a chain-link fence.

That caused the partly open door to close on his arm and trap him, and he lost his footing in the snow, Walter testified. He said he pulled himself up and skied with his shoes as Allen pulled back onto the roadway and accelerated to 30 or 40 mph.

Walter said he was scared he would fall under the car and be run over and repeatedly told Allen to stop. He said he would have shot Allen if he could have, but instead managed to push himself away from the car and turn loose.

Allen didn’t take the stand. Instead, Assistant Public Defender Al Rossi used a blackboard to create doubt about Walter’s testimony.

Walter estimated that the incident occurred over a span of 150 feet, but Rossi said a measurement showed it actually was 85 feet.

At the speeds Walter said they were moving, there wouldn’t have been time to shout so many warnings to stop the car, Rossi argued.

The defense attorney also disputed Walter’s estimate that he slid about 10 feet on packed snow when he freed himself from the vehicle, landing on his buttocks and back.

At 30 mph, Rossi calculated on a blackboard, Walter would have been going 44 feet per second when he hit the snow-covered pavement. At 40 mph, it would have been 58 feet per second, he continued.

A man who hit the ground at those speeds couldn’t get stopped in 10 feet and could be expected to have friction burns, torn clothing and perhaps a major injury, Rossi argued.

Testimony indicated Walter got up and helped track down Allen, who crashed the car nearby and fled. Walter finished his shift and worked the next day as well.

“I don’t think I’ve ever heard of a county employee being criticized for not taking time off when he has suffered an injury,” Deputy Prosecutor Shane Smith countered.

Smith contended Walter’s testimony about the speed was based on estimates that may well have been skewed by the predicament the deputy was in at the time.

If Walter was wrong about that, Rossi asked jurors, could the rest of his testimony be trusted?