18-year-old sentenced to 14½ years in prison for north Spokane shooting

An 18-year-old was sentenced to 14½ years in prison for shooting a man multiple times last winter in the Nevada Heights Neighborhood.

Malakai Swan-McCarthy pleaded guilty July 13 to first- and second-degree assault and second-degree unlawful possession of a firearm before Spokane County Superior Court Judge Harold Clarke III sentenced him Aug. 11 to 174 months in prison, according to Spokane County deputy prosecutor Preston McCollam.

Spokane police responded to the shooting Feb. 11 in the 1300 block of East Kiernan Avenue and found a man who had been shot several times, according to a Spokane Regional Safe Streets Task Force news release. The man was taken to a hospital and later released.

Several people witnessed the shooting and captured it on video. Swan-McCarthy was identified as the suspect, according to the release.

Two days before the shooting, Swan-McCarthy was accused in a drive-by shooting in which police allege he fired shots into the air in Spokane Valley. That case was dismissed, McCollam said.

Swan-McCarthy was arrested in late February after task force members saw him and five others flee in a vehicle from a north Spokane parking lot after a heated exchange with two others, the release said.

The task force located the vehicle about 30 minutes later at a Sunset Highway motel in southwest Spokane. Spokane police SWAT members assisted in detaining people in one of the motel rooms.

Most of the people detained were minors known to the task force to be associated with gangs and criminal activity, authorities said.

Swan-McCarthy is a convicted felon and not allowed to possess a gun.