NEWS BRIEFS: Police shootings already outpace all of last year

An unusually violent year for local police grew more deadly last week, when local law enforcement shot and killed two people, bringing the total number of people shot by law enforcement in Spokane County this year to six. Five people were shot by police in Spokane County in all of 2023. On March 29, the Spokane County Sheriff's Office was called to help Stevens County detectives attempting to serve a warrant in Deer Park to a suspect who had failed to appear in court on a charge of first-degree rape of a child. The Spokane County Sheriff's Office says the man was uncooperative. After an hourslong SWAT standoff, deputies entered the house, and shot and killed the man during a confrontation. Three deputies who fired shots were placed on administrative leave, as is standard practice for local law enforcement agencies. Two days later, on March 31, the Spokane Police Department responded to a house fire call in the West Central neighborhood. Police suspected that the fire was the result of arson, and tried to interview a suspect. The department says that when police tried to detain the suspect, he attempted to fire a gun he'd concealed on his body. Officers returned fire, and the man died at the scene. Two officers were placed on administrative leave. (NATE SANFORD)

HAPPIER TEENS

This week in good news: Students in Washington state are less depressed than they've been in the last two decades, according to the biennial 2023 Healthy Youth Survey. The survey, which tracks state and county data on student health, also found that suicidal thoughts among 10th graders in Spokane County (18.1%) are the lowest they've been since 2012 (17.8%). However, LGBTQ+ 10th graders in the county are more than twice as likely to contemplate committing suicide than their cisgender, heterosexual peers. "There are many school-aged LGBTQ+ youth in elementary, middle and high school that are still living in the closet because they're afraid either of harassment by their peers or ... they're not prepared to deal with the negative consequences at home," Lambert House Executive Director Ken Shulman told Crosscut. More than 200,000 students from grades six-12 across the state's 39 counties filled out the 2023 survey. (COLTON RASANEN)

KIDS ARE THE FUTURE

Priority Spokane has identified child care as its newest project to make meaningful change in the community. Specifically, the group will focus on expanding child care capacity to boost the local economy. Born out of Eastern Washington University's Community Indicators Initiative (now called Spokane Trends), which collects data to understand needs in Spokane, Priority Spokane brings together government agencies, nonprofits, businesses and community leaders to identify "priorities" that can be fixed in three to five years. From 2009 to 2014, the group successfully grew Spokane's high school graduation rate from below 60% to more than 80%. Priority Spokane then addressed youth homelessness from 2014 to 2019. Since late 2022, the group of 27 member organizations has held dozens of community meetings to identify four new priorities, and last month it selected child care as its newest focus. (The other priorities are mental health access, expanding the tree canopy, and alternative housing options.) Next, they'll establish a task force to change child care access significantly over the next three years. (SAMANTHA WOHLFEIL) ♦