Spokane police brass should have looked more critically and with greater transparency at an officer’s use of his police dog to apprehend a fleeing suspect in a trapped truck in February 2019, a report from the department’s civilian in charge of oversight found.

Officer Dan Lesser received one day of unpaid suspension for shouting vulgar death threats and failing to immediately activate his body camera during a February arrest in which he released a police dog into a suspect’s vehicle.

Chief Craig Meidl and Capt. Tom Hendren said they believed that the context of the arrest led them to conclude the use of force was appropriate. They did not mention earlier conclusions that raised serious concerns about Officer Dan Lesser’s use of his K-9.

This moment is precisely why the ombudsman’s office exists. The police department has essentially signed off on everything in the video but Lesser’s demeanor. But we’ve got to have more than their word for it. Because it just doesn’t look right.

Two different body camera views of the Feb. 12, 2019 arrest of Lucas Ellerman, which included a police K9 being placed in the vehicle. The body camera video was released 10/30/2019.

The shots that ended a standoff two years ago on the lower South Hill continue to create a wide chasm between how a grieving family and law enforcement investigators view the same evidence. Conflicting witness testimony and the trajectory of the bullets that killed James E. Rogers on Sept. 26, 2011, have convinced the family that Spokane police and Spokane County Sheriff’s investigators failed to fully investigate the fatal shooting, which occurred after a nearly two-hour standoff with police near the intersection of Seventh Avenue and Hatch Street.

A 16-year Spokane police veteran and member of the SWAT team has been identified as the officer who shot and killed an armed and suicidal man Monday. Authorities said Thursday that Officer Dan Lesser was the only officer who fired shots during the nearly two-hour standoff with James Edward Rogers, 45. Rogers died of gunshot wounds after he refused a negotiator’s commands to get out of his overturned van at East Seventh Avenue and South Hatch Street on the lower South Hill.

A 16-year Spokane police veteran and member of the SWAT team has been identified as the officer who shot and killed an armed and suicidal man Monday.

A reportedly armed and suicidal man was shot to death Monday night by Spokane police after a nearly two-hour standoff on the lower South Hill. The identity of the dead man, described as being in his mid-40s and from Spokane County, was being withheld as authorities sought to notify his relatives. He had crashed his van at Seventh Avenue and Hatch Street while fleeing police after making threats at his workplace earlier in the evening, police said. He then refused to get out of the overturned vehicle.

A Spokane police K-9 who died after surgery to remove a brain tumor was honored this week by the Washington State Police Canine Association.