100 years ago in Spokane: Doctor accused of shooting at cars, drunkenness

A Spokane physician, Dr. William Dietz, had a busy week.

His troubles began when he committed Ada Doyle as an “insane suspect” and had her taken to the city’s emergency hospital. The emergency hospital doctor, however, pronounced her to be perfectly sane. He called Dietz and asked him to come down and talk about it.

When Dietz arrived, the emergency doctor concluded “Dr. Dietz was in no condition to judge, and Mrs. Doyle was released.”

No details were provided about the exact nature of Dietz’s condition, The Spokesman-Review reported.

Yet apparently his condition was “drunk,” because early the next morning, things got weird.

Motorists reported a man standing on the sidewalk near Division Street and Ermina, firing shots at passing motorists. When police showed up, they found Dietz there with a revolver in hand. He was hauled into the police station and booked for drunkenness and assault with a deadly weapon.

From the police beat: Alta Baker, a former nurse-in-training at Sacred Heart Hospital in Spokane, was arrested in Los Angeles and accused of a series of thefts from patients and nursing students.

Baker was accused of stealing a fur coat and mirror from a nursing student at Sacred Heart. After that accusation, Baker took off for Portland and then Los Angeles.

Los Angeles police said she also admitted to stealing $90 from a patient, as well as numerous articles from four students. She told police she was 16, but police suspected she was at least 18, because the school accepted no students under 18.