Police: Knife brandished during dispute

SANDPOINT — A Sandpoint woman was arrested for allegedly threatening a man with knife during a dispute late Thursday night.

Roberta Lee Hoskins is charged with aggravated assault and disturbing the peace.

Sandpoint Police were summoned to the 400 block of Ella Avenue shortly after 11 p.m., after dispatchers received a report that a woman was threatening a man with a knife.

The alleged victim, 32, told officers he was smoking a cigarette on a friend’s porch when Hoskins confronted him and accused him of harassing her and making too much noise. Hoskins then allegedly threatened to cut him with a knife.

Hoskins, the arrest report said, had repeatedly claimed the occupants of the neighboring home were causing noise disturbances and up to suspicious activity, but officers deemed the reports unfounded each time they investigated them.

Officers interviewed neighbors about noise disturbances during Thursday night’s incident, but they told officers they heard only Hoskins yelling and cursing, according to the arrest report.

Hoskins, 55, denied threatening the alleged victim, although a recording of the 911 call appeared to cast doubt on her claim. Hoskins accused officers of failing to respond to her harassment complaints, the report said.

Hoskins’ bail was initially set at $20,000, but Judge Debra Heise reduced it to $5,000 because the woman is a caregiver to a cancer patient, court records show. Hoskins’ bail could be further reduced at a subsequent hearing.

Heise appointed a public defender to represent Hoskins and entered an order forbidding her from contacting the alleged victim, court records indicate.