GU players’ release investigated

The commander of the Spokane County Jail said he is investigating why his staff gave preferential treatment to two Gonzaga University basketball players Saturday by allowing them to be picked up from an area normally restricted to law enforcement.

Jail Commander Jerry Brady said a jail sergeant apparently approved a request allowing attorney Dennis Thompson to drive into the area under the Public Safety Building, called the sally port, so that GU players Josh Heytvelt and Theo Davis could avoid media exposure during their release following drug possession charges.

“In the future, anyone who wants to get special dispensation would have to get approval from a lieutenant or myself,” Brady said. “Just because you are a basketball player is not a special circumstance.”

Heytvelt and Davis were arrested Friday night in Cheney after a Cheney police officer stopped Heytvelt’s Chevy TrailBlazer for not having working taillights, according to court records released Tuesday that provide new details about the arrest.

As the Cheney officer spoke with Heytvelt, two Eastern Washington University police officers arrived. One of those officers walked to the rear of Heytvelt’s vehicle and saw a bag of what appeared to be mushrooms in the rear cargo area of the SUV, according to court records released Tuesday.

One of the EWU officers then spoke with the passenger, later identified as Davis, and said in court records that he could “smell the strong odor of burnt marijuana coming from” the passenger.

Both Heytvelt and Davis were asked to exit the vehicle and were placed under arrest. Officers then searched Davis and found a burnt marijuana cigarette in the upper left coat pocket, records state.

Davis then told the officer that he had been at a party earlier in the evening in which he had “taken a hit off of a bong,” according to court records.

The bag of mushrooms was protruding out of a black “Basketball Hall of Fame Challenge” backpack, which was sitting next to a 2006 “Battle in Seattle Gonzaga University” backpack, records state. That bag had Heytvelt’s name and jersey number embroidered on the front.

When officers searched the “Battle in Seattle” backpack, they found three foil-wrapped “brownie muffins that contained hallucinogenic mushrooms,” according to court records.

Both Heytvelt and Davis were charged with felony possession of a controlled substance.

However, lab tests to determine whether the mushrooms are in fact psychedelic mushrooms won’t be completed until next week.

Heytvelt, 20, and Davis, 21, were released Saturday after court Commissioner James Triplet reviewed the police report. The university has indefinitely suspended both players from the team.

Thompson, the attorney who drove the BMW into the sally port, did not return phone calls placed to his office on Monday and Tuesday.

Thompson is the son of former Judge Philip Thompson, who worked as Gonzaga’s corporate counsel after his retirement in 1997 from the Court of Appeals.

Brady said the sally port, which is located in the basement of the Public Safety Building, is a restricted area used by law enforcement to drop off prisoners at the jail. It has steel doors that close after squad cars enter to prevent anyone from approaching officers and inmates from escaping, Brady said.

Brady held a meeting with his staff Tuesday and learned that the county has in the past made special exceptions for vehicles to enter the sally port. But none of those arrangements has occurred in the two years Brady has been jail commander.

Had the attorney asked him, Brady said, he would have not allowed the civilian car into the sally port.

“We have made exceptions for people to do it in the past, but it was for different kinds of circumstances,” Brady said.