At the request of the sheriff, Spokane County commissioners last week passed an ordinance authorizing the use of unmarked patrol cars, amid statewide controversy about the practice. Spokane County Sheriff Ozzie Knezovich said the county ordinance reiterates what state law already says, that the department has the authority to operate vehicles without official markings. The county ordinance limits use of unmarked cars to undercover detectives and deputies, high-ranking members of the office and deputies performing traffic control.

The majority of the six Spokane County sheriff’s deputies who fired their guns at a despondent and armed Afghanistan war veteran following a highway chase have been investigated in other cases for using violent force. Jedadiah Zillmer, 23, died of multiple gunshot wounds – the fifth person killed by law enforcement officers in Spokane County since January 2013.The sheriff’s office Tuesday named the deputies who shot at Zillmer, who called 911 dispatchers and said he wanted to die in a police shootout, according to court records. He wore a bulletproof vest and was armed with three guns when he was shot and killed.

Spokane County commissioners on Tuesday voted to approve a $2 million settlement with the family of Wayne Scott Creach, a Spokane Valley nursery owner and pastor shot to death in 2010 in a confrontation with a sheriff’s deputy. Commissioners Todd Mielke and Shelly O’Quinn approved the settlement without comment.

Sometimes what passes for justice around here is just nuts. The recent settlement in the shooting death of a Spokane Valley pastor does nothing to invalidate my thesis.

The family of a Spokane Valley pastor shot to death after a confrontation with a deputy sheriff in 2010 will receive $2 million. The settlement was reached Friday after U.S. District Judge Rosanna Peterson dismissed Spokane County and Sheriff Ozzie Knezovich from the family’s civil lawsuit. That left as the lone defendant in the case Deputy Brian Hirzel, who shot the Rev. Wayne Scott Creach in the parking lot of the pastor’s nursery and greenhouse business on Aug. 25, 2010. Although the county had been dismissed from the federal lawsuit, it still was providing Hirzel’s legal defense.

The family of slain Spokane Valley pastor Wayne Scott Creach has filed a $14.7 million wrongful death claim against Spokane County, which is a necessary prelude to filing a civil lawsuit.

There’s something of a John Ford western in the tale of Wayne Scott Creach and the August night he ventured out of his house shirtless and carrying a gun. It sounds like a story of craggy Western individualism. The notion of a property owner taking the law into his own hands has become strangely appealing in these times of reactionary politics and heightened suspicion of public institutions. The brash romanticism of this idea conveys a rugged energy right out of “The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance.”

The Spokane County Sheriff’s Office posted a redacted version of the investigation into the shooting of Wayne Scott Creach by Deputy Brian Hirzel online.