BCSO: Shooting may be self-defense
SPIRIT LAKE — Bonner County sheriff’s investigators are investigating a homicide that occurred on Friday.
Deputies and a Priest River Police officer were summoned to the 100 block of Rebel Ridge Road after receiving a report a disturbance at 5:15 p.m. Prior to the officers’ arrival, dispatchers advised them that a 41-year-old woman shot a 39-year-old man who was attacking her and her 70-year-old mother, according to news release issued on Monday.
When deputies arrived, bystanders were administering life-saving procedures on Joshua Matthew Cole of Spirit Lake. Deputies and fire and EMS personnel took over those efforts, although they were unsuccessful, sheriff’s officials said.
Detectives’ preliminary investigative findings indicate the 41-year-old woman was acting in defense of herself and that of her mother, according to sheriff’s officials.
“Evidence and witness statements collected to this point support that claim,” sheriff’s Capt. Tim Hemphill said in the news release.
The investigation remains open and subject to review by the Bonner County Prosecutor’s Office for a decision on whether any criminal charges are warranted.
Names and further details about the incident were not being disclosed on Monday.
Cole was charged with marijuana and drug paraphernalia possession, in addition to domestic violence in the presence of a child in Kootenai County in 2015.
The drug possession and domestic violence charges were dismissed by the state and Cole pleaded guilty to the paraphernalia charge, according to Idaho’s online courts database.
If the incident is ruled a matter of justifiable homicide, it would the first time since 2015 a Bonner County has had to resort to lethal force to protect themselves.
Bonner County Prosecutor Louis Marshall concluded that a woman who was subject to a protracted domestic attack in Edgemere was justified in shooting Scott Spangler, 55, to death. Part of the incident was documented in an open-line 911 that was placed during the incident.
Keith Kinnaird can be reached by email at kkinnaird@bonnercountydailybee.com and follow him on Twitter @KeithDailyBee.