Woman hit by car friend was driving as they tried to catch ‘suspect’ who turned out to be innocent

Two women seeking to find a stolen car are being used as an example by the Spokane County Sheriff’s Office to warn people not to take the law into their own hands.

A woman was run over by a woman accompanying her about 11:30 a.m. Sunday when trying to retrieve a car they believed was stolen, the Spokane County Sheriff’s Office said in a news release.

The women believed there was a stolen car at a residence on the 5300 block of East Eighth Avenue, the Sheriff’s Office said. Sheriff’s spokesman Cpl. Mark Gregory said he could not provide details about why the women believed there was a stolen car there.

The women drove to the address in a Subaru. Upon arrival, a woman was sitting in the passenger seat of the car the two women believed was stolen. The women in the Subaru blocked the woman in the parked car. Quick to react, one of the visiting women slid into the driver’s seat and started the engine.

The two women in the Subaru set into action, with the woman in the passenger seat hopping out and springing onto the hood of the vehicle they considered to be stolen with a baseball bat in hand. Her time on top of the car was short-lived, when she fell off and was run over by her companion in the Subaru.

The woman in the supposedly stolen vehicle fled. The woman who was run over was rushed to the hospital. Although her injuries are unclear, she is stable, Gregory said.

The sheriff’s office investigation determined the car had never been reported stolen.

Authorities are not looking for the woman who fled the scene.

No one involved will face charges, Gregory said.

Gregory urged people not to take justice into their own hands and instead to call 911 or Crime Check at (509) 456-2233 in the case of an emergency.

“Please don’t go and inject yourself into situations that’s going to possibly get yourself hurt and without you understanding the laws and without you understanding actually what is going on,” Gregory said.