Knife-wielding man arrested after standoff

A 40-year-old Spokane man was arrested early Saturday morning after a two-hour stand-off with police. He faces a first-degree assault charge for attacking his neighbor with a butcher knife. Spokane police said they received a call from a man living in the 100 block of East Bridgeport who said he’d gone to his neighbor’s house Friday evening to ask a favor, and the neighbor attacked him with a knife. They wrestled, and he received injuries that aren’t life threatening before he escaped and called police. While police were talking to the victim, Michael Miethe came onto his porch with knife in hand and yelled at officers that they’d have to shoot him. Then he went back into his house. Police called hostage negotiators and the SWAT unit, and negotiators talked with Miethe for nearly two hours before he came out of the house. The SWAT officers used sponge rounds to subdue him, and he was arrested and taken to a hospital for injuries from the rounds and a possible overdose.