Man sought in shooting accused of holding person at gunpoint during Spokane Valley standoff with police

A 28-year-old man who may be connected to a shooting that left a man wounded last month in north Spokane was arrested Friday after breaking into an apartment and holding a resident at gunpoint during a standoff with law enforcement in Spokane Valley, according to police.

Ian S. Richart was booked into the Spokane County Jail on suspicion of first-degree burglary, first-degree kidnapping and first-degree unlawful possession of a firearm related to Friday’s standoff, according to a Spokane Police Department news release.

Police sought Richart as a suspect in a shooting inside an RV in the early-morning hours of June 27 near Crestline Street and Walton Avenue. Richart has not been charged in the shooting.

A man was taken to the hospital with gunshot wounds above his right knee and on his left triceps in that incident, according to search warrant documents filed July 1 in Spokane County Superior Court. The man shot told medics someone named “Richard” shot him over a stolen motorcycle and that two men were involved in the shooting, documents indicated.

That June morning, Richart was armed with a handgun and had left the shooting scene prior to police’s arrival, police said in Friday’s release.

Police learned Wednesday that Richart was north of downtown Spokane, according to the release. When police arrived, Richart and a woman, later identified as Allie J. Alderson, drove away, police said.

Police then learned at about 1 a.m. Friday that Richart and Alderson were at an apartment in the 2400 block of North Wilbur Road in Spokane Valley.

SWAT teams, hostage negotiators, air support units and an explosive disposal unit responded and surrounded the apartment, police said. Officers detained Alderson, but Richart did not respond to any attempts to communicate with law enforcement and barricaded himself in an apartment.

Police said Richart, reportedly armed with a handgun, went into an attic before breaking into a neighboring apartment and briefly holding a resident at gunpoint, according to police.

Officers located Richart in another attic space in the building and fired “chemical munitions” into the attic, according to the news release. Richart fled from the attic, jumped down to the parking lot and ran, but officers arrested him at 8:40 a.m., nearly eight hours after police learned he was at the apartment.

Alderson, 27, was booked into jail on suspicion of attempting to elude a police vehicle and for an unrelated felony warrant, according to police. She made her first appearance Friday in Spokane County Superior Court and remained in jail Friday night on a $10,000 bond for the eluding charge.

Richart remained in jail without bond Friday night.

Police were called to the June 27 shooting at about 1:30 a.m., according to court documents. Officers found the man with a gunshot wound lying on Walton Avenue near North Crestline Street with two women and a man standing nearby.

The man told police he was walking in the area when he heard about five gunshots and saw a man stagger out of a parked RV on Walton, court records show. The man then staggered toward Crestline and fell over on the sidewalk.

One of the women told police she heard gunshots and came out of her camper, according to documents. She saw the gunshot victim walking toward her with a woman before she saw him fall to the ground on the sidewalk.

The second woman told police she was in the RV alone with her dog when the man shot, who she described as a friend of her boyfriend, showed up to check on her because her boyfriend was in jail. About 10 minutes later, gunshots woke her from her sleep and she saw muzzle flashes in her camper, she told police.

She said she didn’t know who fired the rounds, but that the man shot fell over and appeared to have been shot inside the camper. While the man shot was on the ground, her pit bull bit him, she reported.

She told police she didn’t have a phone to call 911, so she walked outside to flag someone down for help, and the man shot followed before collapsing on the sidewalk. Police did not locate the shooter, but found a large amount of blood and shell casings inside the RV, documents show. Police also found a shell casing outside the camper’s front door.