Police name man suspected of shooting three people outside downtown Spokane bar early Saturday morning

Johnathan R. Love is the man police say shot three people early Saturday morning outside a downtown Spokane bar.

Prosecutors have charged the 29-year-old Love, who appeared in court Monday via video from the Spokane County Jail. Clad in yellow-green jail clothes, with short dark hair and a short brown beard, Love faces three counts of first-degree assault and three counts of drive-by shooting. He is held in lieu of a $1 million bond.

Nathanael E. Beier, 31, and taxi driver Tonya R. Roberts, 47, were both shot in the head. They remained alive Monday but on life support. Deputy Prosecuting Attorney Tom Treppiedi said the charges against Love could change depending on the medical status of Beier and Roberts .

Police erroneously reported Saturday that the two were shot and killed outside Luckys Bar on the 400 block of West Sprague Avenue in downtown Spokane.

Also shot and wounded was Katelyn T. Corigliano. She was shot in the leg and suffered a compound fracture. A GoFundMe page for her recovery has so far raised $9,500.

Love doesn’t have a lengthy criminal background in Spokane County. In the lower courts, he has a history of multiple traffic infractions.

Prosecutors alleged Monday that witnesses reported gunfire coming from an SUV traveling the wrong way on Sprague at 1:27 a.m. Saturday.

Spokane police Officer Corrigan Mohondro was less than two blocks away from the bar at the time.

He saw an SUV driving erratically and was about to stop it when he heard about the shooting and drove to Luckys instead. Before he approached the bar, Mohondro noted and reported the first three letters of the SUV’s Washington license plate: BVW.

Just 10 minutes later, Washington state Trooper Russell Sanders was driving westbound on U.S. Highway 2 at Flint Road when a BMW SUV, license plate BVW6365, sped past him. Sanders caught up to the vehicle at the intersection of Highway 2 and Hayford Road in Airway Heights.

Sanders stopped the vehicle and found Love inside, as well as a shell casing on the driver’s side floor.

Mohondro met up with Sanders at the scene and confirmed the BMW was the same vehicle he saw driving erratically 10 minutes earlier. Mohondro said he also saw what appeared to be a handgun in the car.

According to court documents, Love said he had a gun in his vehicle but denied “any knowledge of gunshots from the vehicle.”

At 3:20 a.m., Spokane police Det. Erik Golladay interviewed Love, who was intoxicated and vomited multiple times in the interview room.

Love said he was at Luckys a few hours earlier with a friend. He said his friend was asked by bar employees to leave and Love proceeded to give him a ride home to Airway Heights.

Love told Golladay he didn’t remember what happened between dropping his friend off and getting stopped by Sanders.

In a Saturday interview with police, the friend said Love dropped him off in Airway Heights at around 12:30 a.m. Saturday.

Golladay said he viewed surveillance footage from a local business on Saturday afternoon.

That footage shows an individual, who matches Love’s general description, getting into the BMW SUV at about 1:24 a.m. alone.

The video shows the SUV driving eastbound on Sprague 70 seconds later as shots are fired.

Editor’s note: The original version of this story incorrectly stated Tonya Roberts’ age due to an editor’s error.