Councilwoman, coalition outraged at firehouse case

Some Spokane women are reacting with outrage at the city’s handling of the sexual encounter in a firehouse between a 16-year-old girl and a 35-year-old firefighter.

The anger intensified this week when top officials at the Spokane Police Department said they didn’t arrest firefighter Daniel W. Ross because the sex was consensual, and detectives allowed pictures of the girl to be destroyed after Ross told them he thought she was 18 since the two had met on an adults-only Web site.

“I’m burning this morning. What kind of excuse is that?” said Spokane City Councilwoman Nancy McLaughlin of the police explanation of why they allowed Ross’ sexually explicit photos of the girl to be deleted from his digital camera.

“How dare those detectives take it upon themselves to make that kind of decision over this kind of a public issue? I think we have every right as citizens to call for an outside investigation of this. When it comes to investigating your own and there was this mistake, it’s not acceptable,” McLaughlin said.

Also, the Spokane Women’s Coalition, a three-year-old group with 150 women on its mailing list, is holding a press conference outside City Hall at 9:30 this morning to protest the handling of the Feb. 10 incident at Fire Station No. 17 in northwest Spokane.

“We aren’t interested in making enemies of the police and the Fire Department. They are our public servants. But we’d like for them to understand that some sensitivity needs to be applied to these situations. We are reading that evidence was destroyed after the police learned the girl was a minor. That indicates there are some gaps in training,” said Jet Tilley, a coalition member.

McLaughlin is the third council member, along with Bob Apple and Mary Verner, to call for an independent investigation. A Spokane Police Department internal affairs investigation of Detective Sgt. Joe Peterson and sex crimes Detective Neil Gallion is already under way and may take a month, Acting Police Chief Jim Nicks told the newspaper Monday.

The City Council will be briefed next Monday on the progress of the police investigation and a separate, internal Fire Department investigation.

Nicks said he agreed with the detectives who investigated the incident that there was no probable cause to arrest Ross because he “lacked the knowledge” that the teenager he met on the Internet was under 18. Lt. Scott Stephens also said the two detectives directed the destruction of approximately 10 photos of the girl taken at the fire station because they couldn’t allow Ross to continue to possess them – a violation of state law – after he had been informed she was a minor.

The Spokane Women’s Coalition began to discuss the incident at a recent meeting and members were “horrified” by the destruction of the photos, said Kathryn Graham, the former owner of the Magic Lantern Theater and a founding member of the group.

“We all feel this is sexual abuse of a 16-year-old girl. He (the firefighter) used her. Even though she may be the legal age of consent, emotionally he had a huge advantage over her,” Graham said.

The coalition decided to hold its press conference today because it is International Women’s Day. An observance of the international day will be held at the Spokane Women’s Club from 4 to 6 p.m.

Sheri Barnard, a former mayor of Spokane, is also active in the coalition. “We need to take a position and let the community know we can’t tolerate this behavior. We’re going to say we’re upset and outraged, and what better day to say it than International Women’s Day,” Barnard said.

Shannon Sullivan, who organized a successful recall of former Spokane Mayor Jim West last year after the newspaper revealed he was using the Internet to seek dates with young men, said she is “very upset” with the handling of the firefighter incident.

“Didn’t we learn anything from the (West) recall? Would this be different if it was a boy? This just doesn’t make any sense,” Sullivan said. She was seeking a meeting this week with Spokane Mayor Dennis Hession to discuss the incident.

Also Tuesday, the decision by police investigators not to arrest Ross in part because he didn’t know the girl was under 18 got a response from former Spokane County Prosecutor Don Brockett.

Brockett said he believes the police are incorrectly applying state law.

“It is not a defense that the defendant did not know the alleged victim’s age,” Brockett said. “That must be proven by a ‘preponderance of evidence’ by the defendant in a court of law.”

The age of consent in Washington is 16, but state law makes it illegal to possess sexually explicit pictures of anyone younger than 18.

In such cases, a suspect must make a “reasonable bona fide attempt” to learn a minor’s true age by requiring a driver’s license, marriage license, birth certificate or other document and not rely solely on the statements from the young woman, state law says.

State law also requires police to immediately seize cameras used to take sexually explicit pictures of minors, Brockett said.

“It’s my opinion that the camera should have been immediately seized and subject to forfeiture. We’ve made this decision as a matter of public policy, regardless of whether the incident is a crime. Period,” Brockett said. “The reason this is such a serious matter is we all know the Internet is being used to spread child porn,” the retired prosecutor said.

Nicks told the newspaper that when the detectives returned to the Public Safety Building on Feb. 11 without Ross’ camera, he asked them to go back and get it. “I thought we should have that camera,” Nicks said. “I knew this wasn’t going to be a simple one.”

Brockett also took exception with police officials who said they can’t now get a search warrant in an attempt to retrieve the images from the camera, which the firefighter surrendered to detectives after deleting the pictures at their direction. He said the prosecutors also didn’t have the actual photos to review, only descriptions of them provided by detectives who decided the images should be deleted.

In most cases, police are “quite aggressive” and are usually creative in their attempts to get search warrants, Brockett said. “That’s what they do in most cases, but we’re not seeing it here, which makes me wonder.”