Latest news with #LisaBrown
Yahoo
15-07-2025
- Health
- Yahoo
Annual survey shows decrease in Spokane County homelessness from last year
Jul. 14—The number of homeless people in Spokane County fell by 10.6% last year. The findings are based on the 2025 point-in-time count conducted in January when teams fan out to count and question Spokane County's homeless population on a particular night. This year's count found 1,806 people living on the streets or in shelters. It was the second consecutive year that showed a decline While homelessness in Spokane dropped overall, the number of people living without shelter during January rose to 617 from 443 a year earlier, while the number of homeless people staying in shelters fell from 1,578 to 1,189. The annual point-in-time count, which the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development requires of counties receiving federal funding, had shown a steady increase in Spokane County homeless for much of the past decade until the past two years. As a snapshot during a single night of the year, the count cannot be extrapolated to what homelessness looks like year round and some experts question its reliability. Still, Mayor Lisa Brown touted the latest numbers as evidence her administration's approach to homelessness is working. "The big picture is the trend is in the right direction," she said Monday. During her tenure, Brown has shifted the city's focus on centralized emergency shelters to scattered sites across the city. Those moves, she said, are a cause of the overall decrease, and, the increase of unsheltered people. During the 2024 January count the Trent Resource and Assistance Center was still open. Its closure in November is one cause for the increase in unsheltered individuals surveyed. "I'm sure there were more shelter beds in 2024 than there were this year but there was not an equal rise in unsheltered populations, which I think means we're doing good work," argued Neighborhood, Housing, and Human Services division director Dawn Kinder. Of those surveyed during the 2025 count, 43% of adults reported they had severe mental illness and 52% of adults reported drug addiction. During a Monday presentation to the Spokane City Council, councilman Jonathan Bingle argued the city does not address these issues to the same degree they do housing. "We are regularly told this is a housing problem. And I don't disagree that there's a serious housing component to this. But when I see this data that means at a bare minimum we have 700 folks struggling with something pretty serious," he said. "I would like to see a little bit more balance in our conversations. Not just housing-focused because there is a lot more to this." Kinder defended the administration's housing-first policies as the only way for homeless individuals to receive effective treatment. "We are struggling with mental health and addiction and a myriad of challenges. But expecting somebody to get clean and sober while unhoused or have reliable treatment for mental health unhoused is a bit of a stretch," she said. "So is it more than housing? Yes. But can we get somebody completely healthy and stable without housing? No." The count also found 70% of respondents last became homeless while living in Spokane County. An additional 14% became homeless from somewhere within Washington State. Brown said the results are evidence against beliefs that many of Spokane's unhoused come from elsewhere in the country. "I don't buy the narrative that Spokane is somehow a magnet for the unhoused. I think a city in the urban center of a very rural region that has health care services, education services and potential employment is going to be a place where a lot of people end up," she said. Asked what she would say to Spokane residents who might not believe homelessness is decreasing, the mayor said: "People are still going to see homeless people" on the street even if the population in shelters is decreasing. "Nothing about the (count) suggests we've solved the crisis," added Kinder. "But we are making really strategic investments to try and address those who are unsheltered."
Yahoo
14-06-2025
- Politics
- Yahoo
Spokane leaders aim to quell misinformation and distrust after immigration protests
Jun. 13—Just days after dozens of people were arrested after clashing with law enforcement at an immigration protest in downtown Spokane, area leaders are looking to learn from the incident and prevent similar unrest at others planned for Saturday. In a news release Friday, Mayor Lisa Brown said she and police Chief Kevin Hall have asked the city's police ombudsman to conduct a review to ensure law enforcement followed department policy when responding to demonstrators. Shortly after the mayor notified the public of the review, Hall also sent out a release elaborating on his prior statements about nonlethal crowd dispersion tools in an effort to "give a more complete picture" of the evening. The protest started when two immigrants, who came to the U.S. legally after fleeing persecution in Venezuela and Colombia, were arrested outside of an ICE office in North Spokane. Police deployed foam bullets, bean bags, PepperBalls and smoke canisters to control agitators in the crowd, according to previous reporting from The Spokesman-Review, and some 30 people were arrested. The protest eventually made national news. "The people of Spokane have placed their trust in the (Office of Police Ombuds) ability to be an independent voice of analysis and reason. Chief Hall and I share that trust and believe an independent review is a commonsense step to take during this important moment," Brown said. The mayor asked for the ombudsman to review the response "given the high-profile nature of the demonstration" and "potential for misinformation and distrust," city spokesperson Erin Hut wrote in an email. Brown wants a complete and objective assessment of the response, Hut said. "We exist to evaluate police response," Ombudsman Bart Logue said Friday. "I accepted the request and have already sent out requests for video and documentation. We want to do a good job." The protest involved hundreds of demonstrators and officers. Logue expects this will take months to review. It's too early for him to weigh in on what was appropriate or wasn't appropriate, but he does believe a review of the event "in general" is necessary, given its size — 185 Spokane police officers and around 50 Spokane County Sheriff's Office deputies responded. Once a review is completed, the ombudsman office will issue a report recommending any changes to department policy or training to fix potential response errors. Hall, who was only appointed as Spokane's police chief last year, has made a strong effort to reform the department with data-driven police practices. The difference from the George Floyd protests of 2020 and the ICE protests now is seen mostly in the tear gas and looting of businesses; multiple injuries were reported following strikes of rubber bullets and bean bags, including that of a 13-year-old girl, and countless people inhaled tear gas instead of white smoke. Hall said PepperBalls and smoke canisters were deployed Wednesday. On Friday, Hall said he learned during his ongoing review of the incident that bean bags and foam projectiles were also deployed. "From the information we currently have, these tools were used in response to assaultive behavior. We are still reviewing the full context of these interactions, and unless new details come to light, the actions taken appear to align with our use-of-force guidelines," Hall wrote. "I want to acknowledge that I did not have this information available during Wednesday night's press conference. I shared what I knew at the time, and I regret not being able to give a more complete picture in that moment. I'm committed to correcting that now." Although people at the protest reported they were hit with a rubber bullet, Hall maintains they were not used. Rubber bullets can break the skin and cause significant injury, like a bone fracture. Saturday brings new caution for Spokane-area law enforcement, as a "No Kings" protest against President Donald Trump is planned as part of nationwide demonstrations. Another large gathering, the annual pride festival, is happening the same day. Spokane County Sheriff John Nowels issued a statement ahead of Saturday's Pride Festival and protest urging demonstrators to remain lawful and not infringe upon each other's rights in public spaces. He added he hopes police response "will not be needed," but his office is prepared to respond if necessary. "I hope we all have a safe weekend of celebrating Flag Day, Father's Day, and Pride. For those groups who want to express their opposition or support of political viewpoints and actions, there is room here for all of us," Nowels said in the statement. "Let's make sure the Spokane area is the example to the rest of the country on how diverse people and viewpoints can peacefully coexist."
Yahoo
13-06-2025
- Politics
- Yahoo
Spokane Mayor Lisa Brown defends difficult decision to deploy police during Wednesday protests in order to avoid National Guard response
Jun. 12—As immigration protests broke out downtown Wednesday night, Spokane Mayor Lisa Brown had to strike a balance, not wanting to appear to be assisting or condoning the actions of federal immigration agents while fearful President Donald Trump could use a weak police response to justify the deployment of the national guard, as he did recently in California. "I think we're all aware of the situation that unfolded in Los Angeles and the deployment of the National Guard troops and U.S. Marines to that city," Brown said Wednesday night as the curfew she ordered took effect. "It was fairly clear to me that if there was no Spokane Police presence, that that could be used as a justification for the National Guard or other national agents to come in and take control of the situation." Her first response earlier in the afternoon had been to call Washington state Attorney General Nick Brown to see if there were any legal steps that could be taken to assist 21-year-old Cesar Alexander Alvarez Perez, who is seeking asylum from Venezuela, and Joswar Slater Rodriguez Torres, a Columbian national , and to connect the attorney general with former City Council President Ben Stuckart, who spurred the initial protest. She insisted that Spokane police were not deployed to "assist" Immigration and Customs Enforcement in their detention and transport of the two men. Once protesters surrounded the Cataldo Avenue ICE office and blocked the exits, and unknown activists spray-painted an ICE vehicle's windshield and slashed another's tire, they were violating city law, requiring local police response, she argued. City spokeswoman Erin Hut noted that some protesters began to remove park benches to use them to add to the barricade, which "could be seen as an escalation." The mayor had reiterated throughout the evening, including to Stuckart, that the city would keep the peace while abiding by the Keep Washington Working Act. Often referred to as Washington's "sanctuary state" law, the 2019 state law prohibits local law enforcement from collaborating with federal immigration agencies, including by sharing nonpublic information, holding people on ICE's request or arresting someone solely for a civil immigration offense, among other prohibitions. Facing criticism from some activists for ultimately creating the space for ICE officials to leave the facility with the two detainees, transporting them to the state's central ICE holding facility in Tacoma, Brown argued her office was duty-bound to respond to the obstruction of any facility's public access and that it was unrealistic to imagine the situation would end any other way. "I think it's pretty clear from the observations I had of what was occurring there, and frankly from my communication throughout the afternoon with some of the protesters, that they did not expect that they would be successful in stopping ICE, a federal agency, from completing their mission," Brown said Wednesday night. "I think anybody who's observed that agency and its actions and the actions of this (federal) administration could reach the same conclusion." Stuckart and the initial protesters, before they were joined by hundreds from a separately, previously scheduled anti-ICE protest, had expressed clearly that they expected to be arrested, she added. Once Spokane police did arrive en masse and protesters refused to disperse from the immediate area surrounding the ICE offices, continuing to attempt to blockade the entrances, the use of limited crowd dispersal munitions such as smoke grenades and pepper balls became necessary, as did the eventual curfew order, she argued. Notably, the curfew was announced shortly before 8:30 p.m. and wouldn't take effect for nearly an hour, giving protesters time to disperse, and it was not aggressively enforced when it began at 9:30. The area where the curfew took effect was limited, as well — so much so that a small group of protesters gathered outside the doors of City Hall just a few blocks away, visible and audible from a 10 p.m. news conference Brown held to debrief the events of the evening. Broadly, Brown has stood behind the police department's response, but has also stated her office would review the incident to determine whether any mistakes were made and planned to be open about their assessment.
Yahoo
13-06-2025
- Politics
- Yahoo
Pepper-balls vs. tear gas: How 2020's Black Lives Matter protest in Spokane compares to the immigration demonstration of 2025
Jun. 12—Over the course of 10 hours in Spokane Wednesday, an impromptu display of civil disobedience became a showdown of smoke and hundreds of fleeing protesters, leading to more than 30 arrests outside an ICE facility near Riverfront Park. The smoke has since cleared, leaving some protesters questioning the efficacy of law enforcement's de-escalation tactics and crowd control strategies as well as finger-pointing about who escalated what. To Spokane Mayor Lisa Brown, that depends on where you're standing. "People's perspectives vary dramatically, and it can be based on literally how many feet away they were in different locations, and their experience is very directly related to what they personally experienced and observed," Brown said in an interview Thursday. To some, Brown said the escalation began when a handful of federal agents started shoving a human chain of protesters blocking their exit from the ICE facility's gated parking lot. To others, it was the arrival of Spokane Police about an hour later, or their use of PepperBalls and smoke grenades an hour after that, Brown said. Maybe it was when hundreds of other protesters joined the smaller group, marching up Washington Street toward a police skirmish line, the mayor said. The protest involved hundreds of people occupying the streets and solicited the response of 185 Spokane Police officers, as well as around 50 Spokane Sheriff's office deputies, Sheriff John Nowels said. The 9:30 p.m. curfew Brown called was the first time a Spokane mayor has issued a curfew since May 2020, when a peaceful protest of thousands turned into a riot in downtown Spokane in the wake of the killing of George Floyd at the hands of Minneapolis police. Floyd's killing morphed into a larger Black Lives Matter protest against police brutality disproportionately targeting Black men. Then-mayor Nadine Woodward issued an all-night curfew at the time, an order that many defied. Through the night, people looted, vandalized and destroyed windows of downtown businesses, including the downtown Nike store, the first target of looting. Rioters smashed windows of several businesses, and some business owners boarded their stores with plywood during the chaos. Then-County Sheriff Ozzie Knezovich had asked for the assistance of the Washington National Guard. That night, downtown Spokane was enveloped in a haze of tear gas and flash bangs that Spokane Police fired at protesters and looters in an attempt to quell the riot and disperse crowds. The Spokesman-Review reported multiple injuries as police projectiles like rubber bullets and bean bags struck people, including a 13-year-old girl. Countless people inhaled the tear gas. For some protesters on Wednesday, the memory still stung as they implored nonviolence from fellow protesters in their acts of civil disobedience in defying law enforcements' orders. By 7:13 p.m., law enforcement declared the protest an "unlawful assembly" and ordered people to disperse. The orders were announced repeatedly over an intercom as well as from individual law enforcement personnel as they talked to demonstrators. Some protesters peeled away at this order, while others remained and were later joined by a separate mass of hundreds from another protest nearby. Defying the order to disperse was an apparent matter of empathy for Ben Stuckart, the former city council president who organized the earlier protest in an attempt to prevent federal agents from taking two detained refugees he knew to the ICE processing facility in Tacoma. "The crux of the matter is, like yesterday, do I go home, or do I stand up for my friend? And that's, you stand up for your friends and your loved ones, and I think we all need to think of ourselves as one big community," he said. Nowels said Wednesday's demonstration wasn't a riot, but there was plenty of "unlawful activity" that warranted the law enforcement response and then some, ultimately resulting in more than 30 arrests, including two facing felony charges for "unlawful imprisonment." Spokane Police requested help from the Kootenai County Sheriff's Office, but by the time approximately two dozen deputies arrived in Spokane, police said they no longer needed their backup around 8 p.m. "We were there just to offer bodies if needed or any sort of assistance they needed, but they said, 'Actually it's pretty quiet and peaceful here,' so we could leave," said Lt. Jeff Howard, spokesperson from the Kootenai County Sheriff's Department. The hundreds of protesters who stayed for hours after law enforcement's orders to disperse were breaking the law, Nowels said. There were also more serious criminal actions committed by those blocking exits and obstructing ICE vehicles, ultimately preventing federal employees from leaving the building and vehicle in one instance, which is a class C felony, he said. "When you're there blocking doors and windows and exits ... that's a felony," he said. The first orders to disperse came at 7:13 p.m., with the first arrests made around 7:30 p.m. of those surrounding one of the ICE vans with agents inside. At around 8 p.m., law enforcement deployed PepperBalls and smoke canisters that sent stinging smoke and sparks through the streets, prompting protesters to scatter, holding their shirts to their face while coughing and gagging. While still in a preliminary review of law enforcement's reports of the protest, Nowels said his deputies fired at least four rounds of less-lethal munitions at four protesters, including three bean bag canisters and one blue nose foam projectile. Each of these protesters threw recently deployed smoke canisters back to the line of law enforcement, Nowels said. When identified, the four protesters will face felony assault charges, Nowels said. Some Sheriff's deputies on the skirmish line wore bulletproof vests and baseball caps. Others patrolling the scene dressed more tactically in riot gear, carrying firearms and crowd control projectiles with orange tips, as well as other munitions. "Some of the typical things we have would be 40-millimeter blue nose rounds that are foam and potentially bean bag munitions," Nowels said. Nowels said his deputies are trained in de-escalation tactics to verbally subdue the crowd, in his limited review of some video footage, he was pleased to see it put to use by deputies talking with protesters on skirmish lines. "I saw officers and deputies verbally communicate in a very calm way, interacting with the protesters ..." he said. "Our people did everything they could to prevent this from being a violent interaction." Some protesters disagree — including Stuckart, who came prepared to be arrested. He and 15 or so others planted themselves around two federal vans in an attempt to stop the transport. Stuckart said he believes the tension ratcheted up significantly when local law enforcement arrived, and that he hopes they and elected officials are "having a very deep conversation and looking inwardly on how their actions are the ones that escalated the situation." Fellow protester and progressive candidate for City Council Sarah Dixit agreed; she said when law enforcement split the crowd in two, some clad in riot gear, it doesn't inspire calm among the protesters. "It feels difficult to experience de-escalation when folks are fully fitted with rubber bullet guns, I don't know what the correct term is, and fully armed," Dixit said. "Upon seeing that, that doesn't make me feel any safer." Some of the 30 or so arrests were done through conversation between police and protesters, some willingly placing their hands behind their back as police walked them through their arrest. Others were more forceful, pushing protesters to the ground as they resisted officers' handcuffs. "I watched someone get thrown to the ground," Dixit said. "No one was doing any sort of activity that even remotely I could see someone justifying that response." There were several stark differences between this year's demonstration and those from five years ago. The riot of 2020 involved thousands, whereas Wednesday saw hundreds of people. Law enforcement's response also differed; Brown said she had a conversation with Spokane Police Chief Kevin Hall "specifically around not using tear gas," she said in an interview Thursday. Spokane Police also didn't use rubber bullets like in 2020, Hall said at a press conference Wednesday night. While each event prompted a mayoral curfew, Brown's was less enforced by Spokane Police. Some protesters remained at the intersection of Washington Street and North River Drive long after the 9:30 p.m. order to vacate, though police made no moves to disperse the crowd with more projectiles or make any arrests of those defying the curfew. On Saturday, Riverfront Park will become the site of a "No Kings" protest planned around the nation in defiance of a military parade on President Donald Trump's 79th birthday and the U.S. Army's 250th anniversary. At that gathering, expected to draw thousands, Nowels and Stuckart both implored disciplined nonviolence. "Please help the police by discouraging anyone trying to break the law," Nowels said. "No matter how frustrated you are, always be non-violent," Stuckart said. Spokesman-Review Reporters Nick Gibson and Emry Dinman contributed to this report. Elena Perry's work is funded in part by members of the Spokane community via the Community Journalism and Civic Engagement Fund. This story can be republished by other organizations for free under a Creative Commons license. For more information on this, please contact our newspaper's managing editor.
New York Times
12-06-2025
- Politics
- New York Times
Some Protests Calm After Curfews, but Measures Can Have Mixed Results
Unrest stemming from protests over immigration raids in Los Angeles appeared to have calmed somewhat after a curfew was put in place in a small section of the city. And as protests against deportations have sprung up across the country, at least one other city, Spokane, Wash., has followed suit with a curfew. But emergency curfews can have mixed results, experts said, chilling free speech and movement and leading to even more arrests. Mayor Karen Bass first issued a curfew for Los Angeles on Tuesday, lasting from 8 p.m. until 6 a.m. local time across a patch of the sprawling city that included Skid Row and Chinatown. The order was aimed at keeping 'bad actors' off the streets, she said, and excluded law enforcement officers, people traveling to and from work, residents of the curfew area and the members of the news media. On Wednesday night, the streets were relatively calm in the hours after the curfew began, with few protesters and few Marines or National Guard members present, though groups of protesters gathered outside the curfew zone. Ms. Bass said the curfew would continue on Thursday. In Spokane, Wash., where 30 people were arrested during a demonstration on Wednesday, Mayor Lisa Brown declared a state of emergency and ordered a curfew from 9:30 p.m. until 5 a.m. local time. The curfew exempted people leaving a soccer game that began after the restrictions were announced, among others. In Los Angeles, movie and concert venues canceled programming because of the curfew. Alamo Drafthouse, a cinema, said it would refund patrons who had bought tickets to screenings that were canceled after the theater closed early. But curfews can have mixed results, and President Trump, in remarks to reporters on Thursday, credited the presence of National Guard troops — not the curfew — for clearing the streets in Los Angeles on Wednesday night. In the days after the police killing of George Floyd in 2020, numerous cities, including Los Angeles, imposed emergency curfews that were sometimes violated, prompting even more arrests, including for curfew violations. Back then, protesters in many cities complained that the curfews fueled aggressive behavior from law enforcement. For example, in Minneapolis, the city where Mr. Floyd was killed, police officers fired rubber bullets at curfew violators and at members of the news media, who were exempt from the restrictions. Several cities were sued over claims that the curfews were unconstitutional. Karen Pita Loor, a clinical professor of law at Boston University, said officers could use curfews to sweep up large numbers of protesters. The curfews, she said, are 'effective at chilling speech, assembly and movement, and maybe that's what we're seeing in Los Angeles.'
