In brief: Officials say man shot by deputy wielded knife
A man shot Thursday had threatened a Spokane County sheriff’s deputy with a knife, Spokane police investigators said Friday.
Little else has been revealed about the man, whose condition at a Spokane hospital was upgraded from “critical” to “stable” on Friday. Spokane police Officer Glenn Bartlett said he could not identify the man because he has not been charged with a crime. However, charges may be forthcoming, Bartlett said.
Only one deputy – also unidentified by law enforcement – is believed to have fired at the man, authorities now say. More than one was at the scene.
The incident began about 4:30 p.m. Thursday when authorities received reports of a reckless driver in a white Chevy pickup. The truck was seen a few minutes later with a flaming cloth in its gas tank.
When sheriff’s deputies responded to the 16500 block of North Day-Mount Spokane Road, the man came running at one of the deputies with a knife, Bartlett said. The deputy backed up around the end of his patrol car before firing his weapon.
It’s Sheriff’s Office policy that Spokane police conduct the investigation when a deputy is involved in a shooting.
– Jody Lawrence-Turner
Post Falls
Woman charged with neglect of dogs, horse
A Post Falls woman accused of providing too little food and water for her dogs and a horse was arrested Friday.
Janice Lynn Scull, 43, was charged with permitting animals to go without care, said Kootenai County Sheriff’s Department spokesman Capt. Ben Wolfinger. She was booked into jail and her bond was set at $50,000.
The arrest came after a month-long investigation into animal cruelty and neglect allegations, Wolfinger said. No further details were available Friday.
– Jody Lawrence-Turner
Wellpinit,Wash.
Spokanes own nearly all reservation land
The Spokane Tribe of Indians is closer to its goal of owning all the land within its reservation boundaries, thanks to a purchase funded by Northwest electric ratepayers.
The tribe is buying 3,926 acres – all of it within the boundaries of the reservation in southern Stevens County – from Forest Capital Partners, a timber company.
The $5.658 million cost was covered by the Bonneville Power Administration. The agency has a mandate to mitigate for wildlife losses caused by federal dams in the region – including Grand Coulee, which flooded part of the Spokanes’ reservation and ended salmon runs.
The land is part of 2.2 million acres, mostly in the Northwest, that Boston-based Forest Capital bought from Boise Cascade in 2005. It is scattered throughout the reservation, said Kevin Boling, Forest Partners’ Western director of land transactions.
Much of the land obtained by the tribe is “cut-over,” meaning it’s been logged at some point in the past, Boling said.
The Spokanes’ ancestral homeland was nearly 3 million acres. With this transaction, the tribe owns about 90 percent of the 154,000 acres within the reservation boundaries, said tribal spokeswoman Jamie Sijohn.
– Staff reports