Police Department

Officer Involved Shooting on Lower South Hill

Sgt. Teresa Fuller, SPD PIO

Thursday, February 1, 2024 at 7:36 a.m.

Updated Feb. 9, 2024

Spokane Police Officers were involved in an officer involved shooting Wednesday evening in the area of Cliff Avenue and Stevens Street. The following information is preliminary; more information will be released at a later time by the Spokane Independent Investigation Response (SIIR) team.

On January 31, 2024, just after 6:00 PM, patrol officers from the Spokane Police Department responded to the report of a suicidal male in the area of 500 W. Cliff Ave. The call came in from an unrelated witness who reported the male was armed, handed the complainant a suicide note, and threatened to kill the complainant.

Officers arrived on scene within four minutes and found a male fitting the description the complainant provided. The subject still appeared to be armed with a firearm so officers gave him several commands to drop it. On at least 2 occasions during this incident, the subject raised the handgun in the direction of officers who reacted by firing their weapons.

The subject was transported to an area hospital, but was later pronounced deceased. Thankfully, no civilians or officers were injured during this intense encounter.

At this time, it is believed nine officers in total fired at sometime during this incident. As is standard protocol, they will be placed on administrative leave. Officers were equipped with body cameras at the time of the incident.

The Spokane Independent Investigative Response team (SIIR) will conduct the investigation. The SIIR Team is comprised of multiple agencies in eastern Washington including the Spokane County Sheriff’s Office Washington State Patrol, Spokane Valley Police Department and the Spokane Police Department.

As an involved agency, Spokane Police Department personnel will not be involved in this investigation in compliance with WAC 139-12.

• All future communications will be sent via the SIIR Team. The Spokane County Sheriff’s Office is the case managing agency for this incident.
• Once the SIIR Team investigation is complete, the case will be forwarded to the Spokane County Prosecutor’s Office for review.
• The name of the deceased will be released by the Spokane County Medical Examiner’s Office.

The following officers were involved in the incident that took place on 1-31-24:

• Officer Michael Brunner
• Officer William Braten
• Officer Steven Donges
• Officer Will Dowsing
• Corporal Chris Johnson
• Officer Trystan Herzog
• Officer Ryan McLucas
• Officer Dylan Pavlischak
• Officer Andrew Wilson

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