The Spokane County Sheriff’s Office today reopened its investigation into the 2024 fatal police shooting of Spokane man Joshua Musselman, after text messages released last month showed the officers who shot him had not established probable cause to be at the scene.
Less than two months after he cleared the officers, and two weeks after a RANGE investigation revealed the existence of those text messages, Spokane County Prosecutor Preston McCollam asked the independent investigative team to reopen the case. McCollam is running a tight race against challenger Danny Tarkenton to hang on to his job.”
The sheriff’s announcement does not specify what information spurred McCollam to reopen the case, but he told RANGE last week he’d asked the sheriff for “additional followup” after he learned of the texts. The sheriff will publish updates to the investigation every two weeks in accordance with state law, the announcement says.
The day after RANGE revealed the text messages, the Spokane Police Department issued a statement, saying it was adding the texts to its own separate internal affairs investigation and sending them to the county prosecutor.
In the texts, which were added to court records as part of discovery in the Musselman family’s wrongful death lawsuit against the Spokane Police Department, the officers were trying to figure out how they would justify their presence at the scene.
Just a day after they’d killed Joshua Musselman, Officer Daniel Valencia texted Officer Matthew Stewart: “So what’s the crime we were investigating yesterday? Unlawful discharge? Haha.”
Stewart replied: “Hahahahahaha Being a douche lol.”
Valencia responded, “Right. But for reals. For the report. What’s the crime at that point? Unlawful discharge or are we doing a welfare check? Lol. Cuz no one developed [probable cause]. Huh? Lol.”
Screenshots of text messages between Spokane police officers Daniel Valencia and Matthew Stewart.
The prosecutor’s office has not charged a police officer for killing a civilian since at least 2015, when McCollam’s predecessor Larry Haskell took office. McCollam replaced Haskell last year.
McCollam told RANGE last week that he had not seen the text messages when he issued his initial decision that the killing was justified in early September. His report on the prosecutor’s office review of the initial sheriff’s investigation mentioned text messages but quoted them only lightly and said they “do not alter the above analysis regarding whether the involved officers were justified in their use of deadly force and whether they acted in good faith.”
McCollam said his team was on standby if the sheriff’s office made a new report.
“That decision stands at the moment, but in light of the situation, I want to make sure that I have everything, and I’ve tasked my team with being prepared to review what, if anything, additional that we receive,” McCollam said at the time.
In addition to saying they lacked probable cause, the officers also sent a number of text messages wishing they’d done more damage to Musselman, lamenting the inaccuracy of their aim and planning to get together to drink beers.
“I’m hoping we hit him at least once each lol,” Valencia texted Stewart.
Aaron Hedge
Read the original story here
