Prosecutor: Lethal force was justified in shooting

SANDPOINT — The lethal force used against a woman who advanced on Sandpoint Police officers while holding a knife has been deemed justified, according to Kootenai County Prosecutor Barry McHugh.

Jeanetta Riley, 35, was shot to death by officers outside Bonner General Health on July 8.

“Officers ... were faced with a quickly evolving set of circumstances that left them convinced that Ms. Riley had the intent to use the knife to do them great bodily harm and had the ability to do so,” McHugh said in a letter to Det. Barry Reinink of the Bonner County Sheriff’s Office, which investigated the shooting.

McHugh’s remarks were cited in a news release issued by the Sandpoint Police Department on Thursday. McHugh was asked to review the investigation and conclude if the officers’ actions were justified or not.

Sandpoint officers were summoned to Bonner General at about 9:13 p.m. Bonner County dispatchers advised officers there was a woman outside the emergency department in a white van with a knife and was threatening to kill people, the release said.

Officers received another message that a panic alarm had been activated at the hospital.

“Three officers arrived in two marked patrol vehicles and exited. Riley exited her vehicle and began yelling at them.

“She quickly approached the officers with a knife, saying, ‘F___ you’ and ‘Bring it on,’” McHugh noted in his letter to Reinink.

The officers ordered her to drop the weapon, but Riley ignored the command and continued to approach, coming within 10 feet of an officer. Two officers opened fire; the third did not, according to the news release.

The city emphasized that events transpired rapidly. The time from the initial call to dispatch to the radio call indicating shots had been fired spanned only three minutes, 29 seconds.

McHugh noted that the officers who opened fire were trained at the Idaho Police Officers Standards & Training in what is known as the 21-foot rule when confronted by individuals with edged weapons.

Idaho POST counsels officers that a 21-foot barrier of space should be kept between and themselves and a person armed with a knife.

“The rule serves as a guideline as to the distance at which an officer might consider deploying deadly force against a person with an edged weapon,” McHugh wrote.

McHugh’s justifiable-force determination clears the officers of any criminal charges related to the shooting. The officers — Garrett Johnson, Michael Valenzuela and Skylar Ziegler — were previously cleared of violating departmental policy in the incident and returned to the line of duty.

“This concludes a sad event for surviving family and members of local law enforcement,” Mayor Carrie Logan said in a statement.

The shooting has had a polarizing effect on the community, with some contending non-lethal force, such as a Taser, should have been used to subdue Riley. Other argue the officers’ reaction had to be commensurate with the threat they were confronted with.

Police Chief Corey Coon declined to comment on the matter on the advice of the Idaho Counties Risk Management Program, which insures the city.

Riley’s former husband, Dana Maddox, filed a $1 million claim for damages against the city on behalf of the daughter he had with Riley. The city received the claim, which serves as a notice of intent to sue, on Monday.

The claim said Riley suffered from a variety of emotional and mental difficulties.

“One or more of the above-named police officers shot and killed Ms. Riley, thereby inflicting excessive and unnecessary force upon a mentally disturbed patient who was armed only with a knife,” the claim said.