Spokane police arrest 24-year-old woman after back-to-back shootings in downtown bar district

Spokane police arrested a 24-year-old woman after she allegedly shot two women in the downtown bar district Saturday night, minutes after officers finished responding to an unrelated shooting at Borracho Tacos & Tequileria.

The victims’ injuries were not life-threatening, police Cpl. Ron Van Tassel said in a news release.

The first shooting occurred shortly after midnight as crowds packed the bars for Halloween parties, Van Tassel said.

A bystander flagged down an officer who was on patrol near Main Avenue and Division Street, and the officer responded to Borracho, 211 N. Division, to find patrons pinning a man to the ground with a gun laying beside him, Van Tassel said.

Officers learned there had been a fight at the bar, and the man had pulled out the gun and fired one shot, which did not strike anyone. Van Tassel said officers don’t believe he had intended to fire “at any specific person.”

The man’s name was not released Sunday night, and it wasn’t immediately clear if he had been arrested.

Minutes after officers closed down that crime scene, an officer reported hearing “numerous” gunshots in a large parking lot at Sprague Avenue and Washington Street, and the shooter’s vehicle was driving away, Van Tassel said.

Officers stopped the vehicle at First Avenue and Stevens Street and spoke with everyone inside. Officers found shell casings in the parking lot, but no victims came forward, Van Tassel said.

Then two women arrived at a local hospital with gunshot wounds that were not life-threatening, and officers determined they knew the alleged the shooter, 24-year-old Destiny Tensley.

Tensley was booked into the Spokane County Jail on two counts of first-degree assault, as was the driver of the vehicle, 20-year-old Emmanuel Tensley. Both are graduates of Lewis and Clark High School, according to newspaper records.

The cluster of bars near Main and Division is the same area where two Eastern Washington University football players were shot on a Saturday night in mid-July. Two men, Avery K. Francis and Anthony J. Carell, face charges of attempted murder for the shootings of football players Dehonta Hayes and Keith Moore.