Bloglander

As new information into the death of Ryan Holyk continues to pour out and city leaders consider how to revise the ordinance giving the ombudsman's office its authority, some police oversight advocates are asking whether Spokane's police ombudsman needs to take a look.

City and police brass disagree on how the ombudsman could (or even should) investigate. 

Last week, Center for Justice Executive Director Rick Eichstaedt emailed Spokane Police Department Law Enforcement Director Jim McDevitt and Interim Ombudsman Bart Logue asking what role the ombudsman's office could have in the investigation.

"There is serious concern in the community about the handling of that investigation — denial of the DNA evidence, late 'finding' of hat imprint, inclusion of discredited Zehm 'expert,'" he wrote. "Is there a role for Bart [Logue] in this process?"

McDevitt responded that the situation was beyond the ombudsman's scope.

"In my humble opinion it is beyond the OPO's (Office of Police Ombudsman) expertise and outside of his authority," McDevitt wrote. "This matter is in the hands of experts such as SPD (Spokane Police Department), WSP (Washington State Police) and others. At this point, I trust their expertise." 

Local electoral races this year are just beginning to heat up, but City Council President Ben Stuckart is already looking ahead. Not to 2017. Not to 2018. 

To 2019. To run for mayor. 

According to Washington State Public Disclosure Commission filings, Stuckart filed to run for mayor on April 19 of this year. Mark it down now. Ben Stuckart has thrown his hat into the ring three years in the future. And don't expect him to change his mind unless something drastic happens. 

"It’s a sure thing as you can get," Stuckart says. These campaigns, he says, have to start early. 

"I think I’m going to have to start on fundraising in early 2017," Stuckart says. "Because I think it’s going to take quite a bit." 

He's following in the footsteps of Mayor David Condon, who began raising money for his reelection campaign shortly after taking office in 2012.

"I started this campaign four years ago, and it was about engaging our citizens," Condon told the Inlander on election night. "And we didn't let up until today."

Stuckart's proud of the work he's accomplished in the past four and half years. 

"I believe I’ve been a national leader on the oil train issue and the coal train issue... I think I’ve been one of the most successful legislators in the last 15 years in Spokane. I’ve shown I can maneuver around the city well," Stuckart says. "Now we [need to] grow our economy to help everybody." 

The recent U.S. Supreme Court decision Utah v. Strieff chipped away at the Fourth Amendment's protection against unlawful stops by the police.

In a 5-3 decision, Justice Clarence Thomas wrote for the majority that a Utah narcotics detective's unconstitutional stop of Edward Strieff, who he suspected of having just purchased drugs, was excusable because it turned out Strieff had a warrant for a traffic violation.

Justice Sonia Sotomayor, who wrote a pointed dissenting opinion joined in part by Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, put it this way: "This case allows the police to stop you on the street, demand your identification, and check it for outstanding traffic warrants — even if you are doing nothing wrong."

Under the Fourth Amendment's "exclusionary rule," evidence gained as a result of an unlawful stop cannot be used in court, and the idea behind that is pretty simple. If the police and prosecutors can use evidence that resulted from illegal policing, where is the incentive to play by the rules?

The case presents some difficult questions: Should we allow cops to violate citizens' constitutional rights if it turns out after the fact that their guess was correct? Do we want criminals turned loose because of a technicality? And how will this decision — allowing police to stop someone without articulable cause — impact minorities, people of color and the indigent? 

Invoking the writings of James Baldwin, Michelle Alexander, W.E.B. Dubois and Ta-Nehisi Coates, Sotomayor certainly had some thoughts on the matter: "By legitimizing the conduct that produces this double consciousness, this case tells everyone, white and black, guilty and innocent, that an officer can verify your legal status at any time. It says that your body is subject to invasion while courts excuse the violation of your rights. It implies that you are not a citizen of a democracy but the subject of a carceral state, just waiting to be cataloged." 

We reached out to several voices and players in the local criminal justice system to ask what effect they believe this decision will have on policing in America and specifically in Washington state.

Here's what they had to say: 

ON INLANDER.COM

• NEWS: The Spokesman-Review may be on the verge of hiring a controversial editor fired in March from the Orange County Register
  
• NEWS: Oil train protestors interrupted President Obama during his visit in Seattle, and Gov. Jay Inslee called for action
  
• NEWS: It's not only the IMAX Theatre people are trying to save in Riverfront Park, there's a giant butterfly some think is also worth saving
  

IN OTHER NEWS

• The winningest coach in Division 1 college basketball history, Pat Summitt, has died at the age of 64 after a battle with Alzheimer's. Summitt coached the University of Tennessee Knoxville Lady Vols for 38 years, leading them to eight NCAA championships. 
• With less than a week until the Fourth of July, the Spokane Fire Department wants you to know that fireworks are illegal in the city and most of the county. They say this knowing too well that what they call "local scofflaws" will go buy fireworks somewhere outside Spokane anyway. Fines for violating the Spokane County fireworks ban can be $1,000. (Spokesman-Review)
  
• Luckily, when a 75-year-old man crashed his plan into Hayden Lake on Sunday, a Kootenai Health ER physician named Mike Ettner was there, and he got into his boat and helped the man to shore. Unfortunately, another plane crash in northern Idaho over the weekend ended tragically, killing 70-year-old Kenneth Chapman of Spokane, the Kootenai County Sheriff's Office said Monday. (KHQ)
• Spokane Police say a vandal broke into Our Lady of Lourdes Cathedral in downtown Spokane and broke the fingers off several statues and damaged the marble alter, causing thousands of dollars worth of damage. (KXLY)

By now, all that's left standing is a single butterfly skeleton at Riverfront Park. Another's dismantled, stuck in storage.

This week, we have a story about the attempts of Riverfront Park's former manager to save the IMAX Theatre, currently on the slate for demolition as part of the park's major renovation.

In the meantime, however, others are fighting similar battles for their own beloved pieces of Riverfront Park. Spokane resident Jennifer Leinberger and a flock of others want to once again raise up the butterflies that stood tall during Expo '74. Every month she attends the subcommittee focused on the park's renovation, hoping that at least one butterfly can be saved and restored to its former glory. 

"Riverfront Park, in general, is the jewel of the city, and Expo created that," Leinbergers says. "You think of the icons of Expo: The goat, the Pavilion, the Clock Tower, and the butterflies."

Her Facebook group "Save the Expo Butterflies!!!" has over 1,000 members.

There's a beauty in the white frame of the single butterfly that remains, but it's a far cry from what once stood as a defining feature of the park: Over each one of the five sections of Expo '74 loomed a giant butterfly, covered in brightly covered vinyl fabric to mark each area: yellow, orange, red, purple and lilac. 

The book The Fair and the Falls describes how the flowers planted in each section, and the drawings of people and animals on the wall, matched each butterfly. They were designed to move to twirl with the wind. 

President Barack Obama was in Seattle last week to help raise funds for Gov. Jay Inslee’s reelection campaign and had his speech interrupted by activists who want the president to halt oil trains, which have become an increasingly heated issue in the Pacific Northwest following the derailment of one in a small town in Oregon earlier this month.

“Mr. President, use your authority to ban oil trains now!” shouted a protester during Obama’s speech.

Obama, at first, strained to hear what the topic of the shouting before responding.

“Alright, I got you. I heard you. I said, I heard you, I think now — I’m making a note of it. You made your point. Can I go on now?”

He continued:

“This is what I love about the Democratic Party. Doesn’t matter how much I do I always have a bigger to-do list. I’m sorry. You organize the world around climate change, got a Paris Agreement signed. No, you didn’t deal with this yet. So I still have six months, give me a little time. We’re going to use those six months.”

The Spokesman-Review published an article in its Friday edition announcing that editor Gary Graham is retiring in September and that a national search for his replacement will be conducted this summer. However, according to several S-R employees, publisher Stacey Cowles already has eyes for a particular prospect: Rob Curley, a controversial editor fired in March from the Orange County Register after a rocky two years at the helm.

Cowles and Curley did not return emails today seeking comment. But Cowles’ alleged interest in Curley has sent a wave of panic through the rank and file of the paper, some of whom say they’re worried about getting another buzzword-dropping boss who will leave them high and dry after a series of failed initiatives.

“I think we might have Steve Smith 2.0 on our hands,” one employee tells the Inlander. Smith led the paper from 2002 to 2008, winning kudos for his commitment to transparency and “civic journalism,” as well as scorn for big investments in things like radio, which proved unprofitable. Ultimately, Smith oversaw a series of layoffs and cutbacks.

“Look [Curley] up. Absolute train wreck,” another employee adds. “Word is that internal candidates have been told point blank that Stacey wants Curley. Looks like it's down to salary. Lovely.”

In recent days, S-R staffers have been taking a closer look at Curley’s career. He first generated serious buzz in journalism circles in 2005 for his work on hyperlocal websites in Lawrence, Kansas, nabbing himself glowing coverage in the New York Times.

Curley soon jumped to the Washington Post but left town as his hyperlocal efforts there were deemed a “flop” in the Wall Street Journal. Next came the Las Vegas Sun, where Curley took charge of digital operations and created an ambitious video program called 702.tv. It cost the paper millions — yet only lasted four months.

By then, people at the Sun had “took to calling Curley ‘Harold Hill,’ after the main character from the Music Man, a con man who poses as the leader of a marching band and steals money from unsuspecting townsfolk,” according to a Las Vegas CityLife story.

Then off to Orange County, where local coverage of Curley was not any more flattering.

• An article published days after Curley took the head job sported the headline: “Why is New OC Register Editor Rob Curley Already So Loathed in the Newsroom?” The story ended with this tongue-in-cheek note to Curley’s underlings: “Be happy, Reg newsroom: you have a genius in your midst… until he decides to bounce after burning millions.”

• Curley also caught flack for bowing to pressure from a politician to revise a story written, coincidentally, by former Spokesman-Review reporter Meghann Cuniff. Journalism ethicists condemned the interference to the Voice of OC: “This is clearly an unethical overreach by the editors.”

To be sure, over the years Curley has been lavished with awards and praise from media insiders. Critic Dan Kennedy has called him a “digital news pioneer.” The Columbia Journalism Review says he’s “one of the more prominent digital journalists of the last decade.” The Washington City Paper once described him as “the high priest of ‘hyperlocal’ Web journalism.”

It’s a reputation that has won Curley speaking engagements and consulting work. Indeed, say SR staffers, before Curley was booted from the OC Register, he apparently spoke at a retreat for Spokesman-Review managers, and it was there, they believe, that Curley caught the attention of Cowles.

ON INLANDER.COM 

• THIS WEEK: The sprint toward Fourth of July weekend is here. Here's a few events and goings-on that will help you pass the time, including Built to Spill (Wednesday), an Alexis Smith and Shawn Vestal reading (Thursday) and Strawberry Fest at Green Bluff (Friday). 

• TV: Say what you want about Spokanites, but any city with such outrageous affinity for NCIS Season 13 is alright in my book. Check out a list of most-watched TV shows (according to Comcast Xfinity) in Spokane v. the rest of the country. 

• Can one Riverfront Park manager save its IMAX theater? 

IN OTHER NEWS

• A horse breeder from California purchased a full-page newspaper ad looking for a spouse for his son. About a dozen potential mates showed up to the rendezvous in Coeur d'Alene over the weekend. The son, Salt Lake City business man Baron Brooks, says he had no idea what his old man was up to, and said his father is "nuts" and "neurotic." The father and son appeared on Fox News. (Spokesman-Review)

• DOC inmate escaped from custody at Olympic Corrections Center in Forks, WA. Juan A. Cruz Grijalva, 24, was transferred to Deer Park High School to work in the kitchen while a week-long firefighter training camp took place there. The 5'5, 140-pound man was serving time for first-degree robbery. (Spokesman-Review)

• In the U.S. Supreme Court's most sweeping statement on abortion since 1992, it struck down parts of a Texas law that would have significantly reduced the number of abortion clinics in the state. The 5-3 decision will likely have precedent for states with similar restrictions. Click here for a map showing how accessible abortion clinics are across the country.

• Seattle's Pride Parade was yesterday. Check out some photos. (Bonus: New York's parade was yesterday as well.)

We are barreling toward a holiday weekend — Independence Day, believe it or not — so let's look ahead at some of the fun you can have as you recover from Hoopfest weekend, or from avoiding downtown all Hoopfest weekend. 

Monday, June 27

COMEDY | Take a little jaunt to the North Spokane Library for a free show of Zany Zaniac Comedy from performer Alex Zerbe, who plays in the worlds of comedy, music, circus arts and self-expression.

Tuesday, June 28

LIVE BANDS | Seattle-based BOG, playing the Saranac Commons rooftop as part of the KYRS concert series. 

COMEDY | Ralphie May was inspired by meeting comedy legend Sam Kinison years ago, and his own pursuit of laughs has led him to much success, and more than a little controversy, just like his hero. May performs Tuesday and Wednesday at the Spokane Comedy Club. 

LIVE BANDS | Time for another edition of NW of Nashville, the monthly hootenanny at The Bartlett hosted by Jenny Anne Mannan and this time including the Powers, Windoe, Lucas Brown and the Brad Keeler Trio.  

Wednesday, June 29

COMEDY | Great Ideas: Spokane: Today! collects some of the funniest local minds to create a show "that boldly push the limits of powerpoint and the human mind!" at the Big Dipper. 

LIVE BANDS | Boise's mighty Built to Spill are rolling through town to the Knitting Factory as a trio, led by guitar god Doug Martsch, one of the few indie-rock dudes capable of rocking an epic guitar solo among all his killer melodies. Here's our interview with Martsch, and
here's a sample from their latest album: 

Thursday, June 30

THEATER | The Coeur d'Alene Summer Theatre season is off and running, and its first production is a musical-comedy, Peter and the Starcatcher. Read our story about their season here. 

Obviously, we're all watching Game of Thrones, and that won't change until this Sunday's epic season six finale, the longest episode ever in the show's history. 

Newly released data from Comcast Xfinity OnDemand (so yeah, this doesn't cover all TV watchers, including the growing ranks of us who do all our traditional TV watching on the Internet these days) compares the Spokane metro area's viewing habits to the rest of the U.S., and the findings are actually pretty interesting. Here's the list of Spokane Comcast customers top 10 shows:


Apparently, Big Bang Theory is a thing still these days? Side note: I recently saw a Big Bang Theory LEGO set being advertised, which seems sort of odd, considering that most other LEGO sets on the market these days cater to both adult collectors and kids (like Star Wars, Harry Potter, Ghostbusters and Marvel). Big Bang Theory though? What kids who still play with LEGOS are watching that show?