This day in history: SPD officer shoots, kills unarmed teen. City assures it will crack down on ‘noodle cafes’

From 1975: A Spokane police officer shot and killed Craig S. Jordan, 17, when the officer saw him running out of a house on Spokane’s North Side.

Officers were responding to a burglary call and said they ordered Jordan to halt. He “turned toward the officer while reaching into his pocket for what Moore described as a dark object.” Then, he began running.

The officer shot Jordan in the back, “fearing Jordan was armed,” investigators said.

He wasn’t.

He was “carrying a black glove that, in darkness, may have appeared to have been a weapon,” investigators from the Spokane County Sheriff’s Office said.

Jordan was a Black student at Lewis and Clark High School. His mother retained Spokane civil rights attorney Carl Maxey to look into the case. The next day Maxey said he wanted to see “an impartial investigation” into the shooting.

It was the beginning of a lengthy controversy.

From 1925: The city’s war against “noodle cafes” continued with an order banning all minors from these low-budget restaurants, unless accompanied by a parent or guardian.

Many noodle cafes offered dancing and private booths, and authorities feared that teens went there to engage in various kinds of debauchery. Spokane’s commissioner of public safety said the cafes had been “a disgrace to the city.”

He vowed to keep all noodle cafes under close police supervision.

Also on this day

(From onthisday.com)

1800: Congress meets for the first time in the newly constructed Capitol Building in Washington, D.C.