Tensions boil over with shooting at troubled intersection of Second and Division
![A patrol car is shown parked at the scene of a shooting near the troubled intersection of Second Avenue and Division Street on Friday. (Alexandra Duggan/THE SPOKESMAN-REVIEW)](https://thumb.spokesman.com/uO6q6eDqVn9RLDznlEJuDvMVKgE=/600x0/media.spokesman.com/graphics/2018/07/sr-loader.png)
A person is hospitalized with life-threatening injuries after a shooting broke out Friday evening near the troubled intersection of Second Avenue and Division Street in downtown Spokane, police said.
Spokane Police Officer Daniel Strassenberg said one person was shot, but their condition wasn’t immediately clear. Streets in the area could be seen cordoned off with police tape.
Strassenberg said the shooting happened around 7:15 p.m. near Short and Division. The victim had life-threatening injuries, and Hoyt W. Webb, 36, was booked into the Spokane County Jail on suspicion of first-degree assault, Strassenberg said.
The shooting broke out at a spot long bemoaned for crime and drug use, with Mayor Lisa Brown on Tuesday declaring a state of emergency over the proliferation of opioids in the neighborhood. Her predecessor, Nadine Woodward, decried the intersection as a hotbed of “fentanyl foil, feces, tons and tons of garbage.”
A spokesperson for Brown could not immediately be reached for comment Friday.
Witnesses reported that the incident may have been related to a person filming homeless people in the area.
Saving up money for a vacation, Camille Blackmore was picking up a DoorDash order for a customer with her 16-year-old daughter when her back window was shot at.
She had two more blocks to go to reach the restaurant when she saw people scatter from the 7-Eleven on Division Street. Through her window, she saw a man with a selfie stick and gun in hand.
Keeping her daughter’s safety in mind, she kept driving away from the scene before she heard a gunshot that did not come from the man behind her.
Her back window shattered and ended up with a hole. Neither Blackmore nor her daughter were shot.
“I’m glad that it hit where it hit and it didn’t go through the car,” she said. “This is something I never thought would happen.”
Another witness, Carnell Smith, said a man showed up on the block with a camera sometime in the 7 p.m. hour and pulled out a gun after some people objected to his filming.
The man was standing on the corner near the 7-Eleven filming people, who told him to stop, Smith said, but he kept taking video footage. Some people approached the man to tell him again to stop filming, Smith said, and the man pulled out a gun, yelling he felt threatened and aiming it at people.
The shooting is the latest in a string of violence in that area.
Taylor Rogers, 31, was charged with murder after police say he stabbed 45-year-old Jimmie Bailey two years ago about a block north of Second and Division. Bailey died at the hospital.
Abraham Evaristo-Valderas, 20, is accused of shooting and wounding a man in September near where Bailey was stabbed.
Hunter Wood, 29, was recently sentenced to 3.5 years in prison for shooting and injuring a man in January near Browne Street and Pacific Avenue.
Most recently, 18-year-old Richard Smith shot and wounded a man in February outside the 7-Eleven gas station at Second and Division.