Teens charged with beating mother

Two teenage boys were arrested at Central Valley High School on suspicion of beating their mother and threatening to shoot her with a .357-caliber Magnum revolver, Liberty Lake police said Wednesday.

The boys, ages 15 and 16, had stolen road signs early last week, and their mother turned them in to a school resource officer on April 27 at Central Valley High School, Liberty Lake police Officer Erin Lance said.

The boys returned home from school that day angry, then kicked and punched their mother, Lance said. The older brother went downstairs and retrieved the loaded handgun and said the mother “might as well die,” Lance said.

Police said the boys then stole the mother’s car and left, and some of the mother’s friends persuaded her to go to police to report the beating.

Bruised and battered, she told her story to Lance, who was at the station and took the report.

“She was scared and very emotional,” Lance said. “Not just scared, but sad, too, because they were her boys, and she didn’t want them to get in trouble. But she was afraid to live with them.”

The boys had been slapping and hitting their mother for a few years, Lance said, but this was the first time a gun entered the picture.

Lance went to the high school, where she interviewed the two boys, then arrested them on domestic violence and assault charges. They were both booked into the Spokane County Juvenile Detention Center. The pair will also face charges related to the sign thefts.

Later, officers returned to the house with a court order to retrieve firearms. They found dozens of weapons, enough to fill a list nearly two pages long. The mother has moved temporarily out of the house, Lance said.

There is a father in the home, the officer said, but the sons get out of control when he isn’t around.

Though not common in the affluent city of Liberty Lake, domestic violence happens and should always be reported, Lance said.

“If it goes on, we hope people report it,” she said.