Valley police incident deadly

The niece of a wanted man killed in a deputy-involved shooting Saturday morning said the reported confrontation was unlike anything she knew him for.

Spokane County deputies shot Roy Jacobs Jr. about 5:40 a.m. at the Somerset Meadows apartments at McDonald Road and Trent Avenue. He was pronounced dead at the hospital, according to a news release from Spokane police, who are leading the investigation into the shooting.

Jacobs, whose identity was confirmed by his niece Kristina Thompson, had called law enforcement offering to turn himself in on an outstanding warrant. When deputies arrived to arrest him, “a confrontation ensued,” according to the release.

When the Spokane Investigative Regional Response Team searched the apartment after the shooting, they found a knife with a 9-inch blade they said witnesses had described. Police declined to release more information regarding the encounter or the reason for Jacobs’ warrant.

Thompson said her uncle was “a great person with a huge family” throughout the Spokane area. “Everyone loved him,” she said.

Jacobs was living at the apartment with his brother, Thompson said. She said he had four children from previous marriages and wasn’t married at the time of his death.

Thompson said she was surprised by reports that her uncle had been involved in a confrontation with deputies and was unaware that there was a warrant out for his arrest.

“It doesn’t sound like him at all,” she said.

This is the first fatal shooting by Spokane County deputies this year, the Sheriff’s Office confirmed. Spokane Police Department officers have shot two suspects to death in 2013.

The most recent fatal shooting by deputies occurred last September, when two deputies shot an unarmed kidnapping suspect as he moved toward them with what they thought was a weapon. The object in his hand turned out to be a car key fob.

The deputies involved in Saturday’s shooting have not been identified.