Damage done to 14 vehicles, one of which was spray painted with alleged racist language
CHENEY – Police arrested two individuals on Dec. 11 who are believed to be responsible for doing damage to at least 14 vehicles in Cheney overnight on Dec. 9-10. Included in that number is a silver Subaru parked on Buena Vista Street outside Garden Manor Apartments that was also spray painted with alleged racist graffiti.
According to a Dec. 11 news release, Cheney police received a call that a person or person were sleeping in a white van parked outside one of the townhouses on Blackhawk Lane east of the railroad tracks. The vehicle matched the description of one reportedly involved in the malicious mischief incidents that occurred just over 24 hours earlier.
Officers investigated the report, during which time they noticed the door of a townhouse in the 100 block of Blackhawk Lane open and the inhabitant look out, see the officers and then promptly close the door.
Officers knocked on the front door and received no response. Going to the back, they encountered and subsequently detained two males leaving the residence.
Officers interrogated the men separately and received conflicting stories about how they came to be in the townhouse. Confronted with this information, the men recanted their stories and stated they had broken into the townhouse, were living inside and were responsible for damaging the vehicles on Dec. 9-10.
Police subsequently arrested 19-year-old Joseph M. Porter and a 17-year-old minor, both from Cheney, on burglary (unlawful entry) and felony malicious mischief charges. Porter was booked into Spokane County Jail while the minor was transported to the Juvenile Detention Facility.
In a Dec. 17 email, Sgt. Nate Conley said a third individual, another 17-year-old male, was arrested on Dec. 16 and charged with first-degree malicious mischief and malicious harassment. Conley said the incidents were not specific to one or two areas, and included Eastern Washington University’s campus.
“It looks like several vehicles were targeted in each neighborhood, with those neighborhoods being spread throughout the city,” Conley said.
While no estimates from the victims had been received at press time, Conley said the department was putting a price tag on the damage done at $5,000.
The Subaru damaged at Garden Manor Apartments had both its front and back windshields smashed in apparently with a large rock, police investigators said earlier, and was spray painted with the “N” word on both sides. The incident initially appeared to be a possible hate crime, but the owner of the vehicle was later discovered to be white.
In an email, Cheney Police Chief John Hensley said hate crime charges would not be filed as the individual suspected of painting the Subaru was black.
John McCallum can be reached at [email protected].
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