One dead after shooting in downtown Spokane early Saturday, third gunshot report of the night

One person is dead after a shooting in downtown Spokane early Saturday morning, and police say they’re investigating two other gunshot incidents that happened just hours earlier.

The fatal shooting happened around 12:15 a.m., when two Spokane Police Department officers were on bar patrol downtown and heard gunshots, a Spokane police news release said.

A man was lying on the east sidewalk of Washington Street just south of Riverside Avenue with multiple gunshot wounds, officers said.

A “very large crowd” had gathered, police said, and one person was trying to save the man until an officer took over rendering medical aid. Still, the man eventually died at a hospital, according to the release.

Some 30 officers responded to control the crowd and investigate the killing.

Someone was also shot in downtown Spokane early last month, and a former Shadle Park High School star athlete was killed earlier this summer in a shooting only about a block away from Saturday’s.

While Saturday’s was the only incident of the weekend with a known victim, it wasn’t the only one that kept officers busy Friday night into Saturday.

The release said officers already had responded to two gunshot reports by that point in the night.

The first was shortly after 9 p.m. in northeast Spokane near Fiske Street and Ermina Avenue.

In that incident, officers said someone reported hearing four gunshots and seeing a black sedan westbound on Ermina. When police arrived , they found multiple 9mm shell casings in the street, but no suspect.

Just minutes later, around 9:25 p.m., officers were dispatched to a gunshots call reported on the 3300 block of North Altamont Street. Officers found multiple shell casings of different calibers in a grassy area just south of of Stone Street and Liberty Avenue, they said.

Officers obtained footage showing four males, three of whom were armed with guns, shooting into the air and running south through an apartment complex, according to the release.

No one was injured in that incident.

Meanwhile, someone also reported hearing multiple gunshots near Andrew Rypien Field around the same time, but officers said they found no evidence of a shooting there.

Officers have not disclosed whether any of the incidents are believed to be linked. A string of drive-by shootings last month appeared to be unrelated, officers have said.

Police say anyone with information on the incidents – especially the fatal shooting – should call Crime Check at (509) 456-2233.