Suspect, officers identified in shooting

Law enforcement officials have released the names of the suspect and the Cheney police officers who were involved in a Sept. 3 shooting incident in parking lot of Mitchell’s Harvest Foods.

In a Sept. 6 news release, the Spokane County Medical Examiner’s office named Steve L. Anderson, 40, as the individual who was pronounced dead at the scene after being shot by three Cheney police officers in the incident that took place just before midnight.

Anderson was wielding a knife and was reportedly acting disorderly when confronted by the Cheney officers, assisted by Eastern Washington University police, as they exited their vehicles. Anderson advanced on the Cheney officers, and after ignoring commands to stop and drop the knife, continued to advance and was shot.

In a Sept. 10 news release, the Cheney Police Department identified the officers as Officer Zebulon Campbell, Officer Nicole Burbridge and Reserve Officer Nicholas Horn. Campbell has been with Cheney since 2006, Burbridge since November 2017 and Horn approximately one year.

A friend of Anderson’s, John Wilson, set up a GoFundMe site to help pay for a memorial to the father of two, with anything left over after expenses to go towards savings bonds for the children. Wilson said Anderson was a “life long friend, a brother, a confidant a strong man” who always “stuck up for the little guy.”

“A little rough around the edges? Sure, but he was one of my best friends and a good friend to many others,” Wilson wrote. “I have shared joy with him, crazy nights, and tears. Mine and his.”

Wilson said he spoke with Anderson just hours before he was shot. The two talked about planning a weekend fishing trip, and that Anderson “seemed in good spirits.”

As of Tuesday, $695 had been raised for the Steve Anderson Memorial fund, which has a goal of $20,000.

A 1998 graduate of McCall-Donnelly High School in McCall, Idaho, Campbell said in a January 2007 Cheney Free Press story that he had moved to Cheney from the Spokane Valley. After his truck was broken into, he decided to take a few ride-alongs with Cheney police officers, and was hooked on the field as a career.

“I’m not your typical officer, I didn’t get into it because I like to drive fast,” Campbell said. “I got into it because I really enjoy helping people.”

After finishing the police academy, Campbell first joined the EWU Police Department in 2005 before coming to Cheney’s department a year later. He has also worked with American Medical Response, as a volunteer/resident Cheney firefighter, K-9 handler for the department and is currently the field training officer.

Burbridge was with the Spokane Police Department for a year prior to joining the Cheney department, according to the news release. Horn has a background in security and public safety.

Spokane Investigative Regional Response Team (SIRR) spokesman Washington State Patrol Trooper Jeff Sevigney said the investigation into Anderson’s shooting is still ongoing. It’s a “complex investigation,” Sevigney said, partly due to the fact that neither the Cheney or EWU police departments use officer body cameras or video cameras in their patrol vehicles.

Investigators did look at video from cameras at Mitchell’s.

“To my understanding, that was the only video in the area at the time,” Sevigney added.

Sevigney said these types of investigations can take several weeks to gather information, although he added he didn’t think the Cheney investigation would be “as long as other investigations in the past.” Once done, the information will be forwarded to Spokane County Prosecuting Attorney’s Office for review.

Cheney Patrol Capt. Rick Beghtol said an internal investigation into the shooting is also ongoing. That investigation is being conducted by the department to see if things such as policy and training were followed, but is somewhat independent of the SIRR probe.

“They don’t cross, they run parallel,” Beghtol said, adding that some facts produced in one investigation can be used in the others, while other facts cannot.

“The facts of the incident don’t change,” Beghtol added.

John McCallum can be reached at [email protected].