SPOKANE, Wash – In a rare move, the Spokane County Prosecutor’s Office has directed in independent investigation team to reopen the case against several Spokane Police officers who shot and killed a man in 2024.
Just last month, the prosecutor’s office cleared Officers Garth Craigen, Willie Mitchell, Matt Stewart, and Daniel Valencia for shooting of Joshua Musselman, determining the use of force was justified.
Wednesday, though, the Spokane Independent Investigative Response Team, or SIIR, said that “in light of new information”, Prosecutor Preston McCollam has asked the SIIR team to reopen the investigation.
The release did not elaborate on what the new information was, but reporting from RANGE Media in Spokane could explain.
The RANGE story revealed text messages between officers about the shooting, which happened at an apartment building on East Cora.
The text messages detailed by RANGE shows Officer Valencia and Officer Stewart communicating the day after the shooting.
According to RANGE, the messages appear to show them coming up with a story about why they were responding to the apartment building in the first place.
“But for reals. For the report,” Valencia said.”What’s the crime at that point? Unlawful discharge or are we doing a welfare check? Lol. Cuz no one developed pc. Huh? Lol.”
In one of the messages, one officer says “I can’t believe the two of us shot 10 rounds combined and f*cker only got shot 4 times.”
The other officer replied, “I mean he turned and started running so it’s a moving target at 40 yards.”
According to a follow-up story from RANGE, Spokane Police Chief Kevin Hall responded to their story, calling the text messages “disturbing” and saying they’d since been turned over to the prosecutor’s office.
In the text messages from the time of the shooting, a police sergeant called Hall, who was new to the job, “a pussy”.
The messages are part of the file for a civil case against the city, filed by Musselman’s estate
At Wednesday night’s city council meeting, the council will be asked to approve another $100,000 for the city to defend itself in the case, bringing the total for legal costs to $250,000.
Rondi Thorp, who represents the family of Joshua Musselman, sent 4 News Now a statement saying:
We are vindicated in learning that our investigation has led to substantial evidence that we believe clearly implicates these officers in an unlawful shooting. We are want the SIRR team to follow the evidence and do a comprehensive investigation that homicide cases require, not just rubber-stamp the actions of their colleagues. The shocking text messages of police callously laughing at killing a disabled man, saying FAFO, calling Joshua names after killing him, admitting to shooting him while he runs away, and admitting they did not have probable cause, while laughing, is reprehensible behavior. The family hopes justice will prevail; they miss Joshua every day.
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