Spokane police names officers who shot, injured man near Shadle Park High School

Apr. 23—The Spokane Police Department released the names of its three officers who fired their weapons, striking a man multiple times last week on the edge of Shadle Park High School.

Officers Matthew Stewart, Samuel Canty and Joshua Stewart discharged their weapons, police said in a news release.

Matthew Stewart, 36, has been with the department since 2015; Canty, 35, was hired by the department in 2017; and Joshua Stewart, 34, has been with the department since 2021.

The incident started Thursday afternoon when police received reports a man threatened a tow truck driver with a knife and then fired a gun, striking the tow truck, in the 5900 block of North Lindeke Street, according to Spokane Police Chief Justin Lundgren.

Police located the man nearly two hours later near a Shadle Park High baseball field where a high school game was being played.

Police tried to contact the man, but he ran, Lundgren said. Officers chased him away from the game when shots were fired in a parking lot on the south side of the school.

The man, as well as a family's house and vehicles, were struck by bullets. Track and field students were practicing adjacent to the parking lot when the shooting happened.

The man was taken to a hospital and was expected to recover, according to the Spokane Independent Investigative Response Team, which is investigating.

Police recovered a gun next to the suspect, whose name has not been released, and it was unknown whether the suspect fired his weapon, Lundgren said.

The officers were placed on administrative leave, which is standard procedure for a police-involved shooting.

The release said the suspect has previous felony convictions and cannot possess a gun. The Spokane County Sheriff's Office filed a report last year in which the suspect's girlfriend indicated he was "armed and dangerous," and considered "engaging with police" so he would be shot, police said.