Fatal West Plains shooting stemmed from Amazon employees arguing on way to work

A fatal shooting last week on the West Plains stemmed from an argument among Amazon workers walking to work, according to court documents.

William K. Baldwin, 21, made his first appearance Wednesday afternoon in Spokane County District Court on a second-degree murder charge in the killing of 24-year-old Hasani Vita.

District Court Judge Patrick Johnson found probable cause to support the murder charge against Baldwin and maintained his bond at $1 million.

Baldwin wore yellow Spokane County Jail clothing and appeared on a courtroom screen from the jail with his attorney sitting beside him at the short hearing.

According to court documents, a witness who was standing at a bus stop on Hayford Road and Geiger Boulevard, where the Amazon facilities are located, told deputies he saw three young men, later identified as Vita, Baldwin and Tyrese Washington, arguing and walking toward the Amazon warehouse the afternoon of April 21.

The witness said Baldwin removed his hoodie, was “verbally challenging” Vita and appeared to be the “aggressor,” court records show.

Vita walked away from Baldwin, but then all three men got back together and continued walking along Hayford Road toward the warehouse, the witness reported. The witness said he looked away for a moment, assuming everything was fine among the men, then looked back and heard a gunshot. He saw Baldwin, who was about 5 to 10 feet away from Vita, fire two more times at Vita.

As the gunshots were fired, Vita ran into Hayford Road before slowing and falling in the street, while Baldwin and Washington started running toward the Amazon parking lot, according to the witness.

Another witness was driving on Hayford Road by the warehouse when she saw three men approaching the Amazon property, according to documents. One of the men fired three shots at Vita, who ran into the street, she told deputies.

A deputy reported finding Vita lying unresponsive and bleeding heavily in the road with multiple gunshots to the face and torso, documents say. Vita died at the scene.

Another deputy searched for the other two men and found Baldwin crouching in brush in a field east of the Amazon warehouses, according to documents. The deputy reported Baldwin was shirtless and appeared to have just been running.

Baldwin denied shooting Vita, according to documents.

He told a detective he was riding a bus with Washington before the shooting. Washington told him about getting into an argument with a man, later identified as Vita, earlier that day. Vita got on the same bus with Baldwin and Washington at some point during their ride to Amazon.

Washington and Vita continued to argue on the bus, Baldwin said in documents. The three men got off the bus and walked together toward their workplace, Baldwin said.

Baldwin said Vita told him to mind his own business, then saying he wanted to fight Baldwin, who agreed. According to court documents, Baldwin had been wearing a blue zippered hoodie and a gray button-up shirt underneath.

Washington then started “getting into it” with Vita, who picked up a rock and said something about having a gun and shooting them, Baldwin said in documents. “Someone” pulled a gun and started shooting, Baldwin said, so he ran away. He said he didn’t know which man had a gun or fired shots.

STA surveillance footage in court documents showed Vita, Baldwin and Washington getting off an STA bus at about 2:07 p.m. near Hayford and Geiger. Two minutes later, the three men were standing together on the side of Hayford Road, according to Amazon surveillance footage. All three men dispersed moments later, likely after the shots were fired.

Another Amazon employee told deputies he was at the STA Plaza in downtown Spokane earlier that day and saw Washington and Vita arguing. Washington started to record the other man with his cellphone during the argument, so Vita slapped the phone out of Washington’s hand, the employee reported. Washington and the other man were about to fight, so STA employees separated the men.

A detective found a blue zippered hooded sweatshirt and a light gray button-up sweatshirt on the ground near the shooting scene. A handgun holster was inside one of the pockets of the blue hooded sweatshirt found at the scene, the detective wrote.

The detective found Baldwin’s Amazon ID card, a black lunchbox that Baldwin had on the bus and a multicolored shirt along Baldwin’s apparent route running from the shooting.

Officers did not find guns or fired cartridge casings at the scene.

Law enforcement agencies arrested Baldwin Tuesday night in north Spokane, according to a Spokane County Sheriff’s Office news release.

Vita is survived by a daughter, according to his GoFundMe page. The page described Vita as “a very kind-hearted and loving person who was loved by those around him.”

“The people he came to meet always seemed to be uplifted by his enthusiastic personality and energetic spirit,” the GoFundMe said.

Vita attended Rogers High School, according to his LinkedIn page.