In brief: 17-year-olds facing robbery, gun charges

Two 17-year-olds arrested on suspicion of robbing a bank employee downtown will face charges in adult court, officials said Thursday.

Drakarie D. Mills and Timothy White were booked into Spokane County Jail on charges of first-degree robbery, first-degree unlawful possession of a firearm and two counts of possession of a stolen firearm, according to jail records.

On Monday, a Bank of America employee was robbed after declining to to buy marijuana during his cigarette break near Second Avenue and Howard Street, according to Spokane police.

The next day, the employee spotted the suspects at the Spokane Transit Authority Plaza at 701 W. Riverside Ave. about 7:15 p.m., according to police.

Police said the two ran, but officers arrested one as he tried to hide a stolen semi-automatic handgun near a parked car. STA security workers arrested the other, whom police said was trying to grab a gun from his waistband.

The teens were booked into Spokane Juvenile Detention Center on Tuesday and sent to the Spokane County Jail on Wednesday.

Both guns were stolen, police say, one in a Spokane Valley burglary on Feb. 11 and the other in the Tacoma area. The teens said they live in Spokane Valley, police said.

Jurors in place for officer’s trial

An eight-man, four-woman jury was selected Thursday for the two-week trial of suspended Spokane police Officer James “Jay” Olsen.

Olsen, 45, is charged with first-degree assault and two counts of reckless endangerment stemming from a drunken chase in February 2007 that ended in the shooting of Shonto Pete and the alleged discharge of three other bullets from Olsen’s pistol in Peaceful Valley.

Olsen was off duty at the time.

The jurors include a retired teacher, a Lakeland Village counselor, a Fairchild Air Force Base civil engineer, a homemaker, an insurance agent and a forklift operator. The two male alternates are a farmer and an auto auction manager.

They are from many parts of Spokane County, including Liberty Lake, Colbert, Spokane Valley and north Spokane.

Opening arguments in Olsen’s trial are scheduled to begin Monday morning in the courtroom of Spokane County Superior Court Judge Jerome J. Leveque.