Four people, including a sheriff’s deputy and the suspect, died after a Spokane County shooting and a firefight with deputies at a home in Spokane County, Washington, on Tuesday, officials said.
Deputies responded to the home around 2:30 p.m. local time after a woman told a neighbor she had been shot by her brother, according to CBS News US. Spokane County borders Idaho.
According to Spokane County Sheriff John Nowels, SWAT team members and deputies approached the house, tried to breach the door and were met with gunfire. Two deputies were critically injured. One later died of his injuries, and the other was on life support and not expected to survive, the sheriff’s office said, as reported by CBS News US.
Authorities determined that the suspect had an active felony warrant. The suspect is dead.
The woman who said she was shot was taken to a hospital with non-life-threatening injuries, Nowels said.
Deputies used a drone to locate a person down in the yard. That person was later determined to be dead, according to Nowels, as described in a post on the r/USNEWS community on Reddit.
Arriving deputies learned that the suspect may have had access to additional weapons and that there were possibly other victims, the sheriff’s office said. One outlet describes the incident as an alleged domestic violence shooting. The woman reported that her brother had shot her and said others in the house felt "threatened."
The sheriff’s office said the deceased deputy leaves a wife and two children. Nowels described both injured deputies as young members of the SWAT team.
The death count is disputed between the two sources. CBS News US reports four people dead, including a deputy and the suspect. The r/USNEWS post’s headline and opening paragraph say three people dead, but its later text lists the deputy, the suspect, a person found inside and a person in the yard, which also totals four.
The names of the deputies, the suspect and the other victims have not been released. Neither source independently confirms the death count, since both rely on the Spokane County Sheriff’s Office and Nowels. The sources do not say what caused the shooting. No response from the suspect’s family or other parties is reported.
Authorities are still investigating the shooting and what may have caused it. The sheriff’s office said Wednesday that one deputy remains on life support and is not expected to survive, and that arrangements for his organ donation are being considered.
This article relies mainly on CBS News US and a Reddit post, and no other outlets were checked for this report.
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This article was written with AI assistance from the published reporting listed above. It is part of the World Brief daily news podcast.