This day in history: Police shooting of unarmed Lewis and Clark High School student sparked protests. New women’s club launched

From 1975: Dozens of protesters showed up at the Spokane County Courthouse and Spokane City Hall to ask for an independent investigation into the fatal police shooting of Craig S. Jordan, 17, a Lewis and Clark High School student.

The protesters said they were the friends, relatives and classmates of Jordan, who was shot in the back after police responded to a burglary call.

One of the courthouse protesters said her nephew “was brutally murdered by a racist policeman.” Jordan was unarmed. The officer who fired the shot said he mistook a black glove for a pistol.

After 50 people showed up at the Spokane City Council meeting, Mayor David H. Rodgers said the council would take the request for an independent investigation “under consideration,” said The Spokesman-Review.

“The mayor then rapped his gavel twice and immediately adjourned the meeting.”

By policy, Spokane County deputies were investigating the shooting, since it involved a city police officer. A spokesman for the protesters said the investigative body should be made up of a “news reporter, a clergyman, a businessman and an attorney.” And two of them, he said, should be members of a minority group.

From 1925: Spokane was getting a new professional women’s civic club: The Soroptimist Club.

It was patterned after men’s service clubs, and the Spokane chapter already had 18 members signed up.

The Soroptimist organization had been launched four years earlier in Oakland.