An NPR member station
Play Live Radio
Next Up:
0:00
0:00
0:00 0:00
Available On Air Stations

Testimony Wraps Up In Freeman School Shooter Hearing

Doug Nadvornick/SPR

Testimony has wrapped up in a Spokane courtroom at a hearing related to the 2017 Freeman school shooting. The question is whether the now 17-year-old shooter will be tried as a juvenile or an adult.

Spokane Public Radio has not publicly named the suspect because he is still legally a minor.

On Friday afternoon, the attention turned to the interview done with the alleged shooter by two sheriff’s detectives not long after the incident.

Detective Scott Bonney was directed to read selected passages from a transcript from the interview conducted in a deputy’s car.

Bonney recounted that the teen didn’t feel any remorse about shooting and killing fellow student Sam Strahan. In fact, he reported not feeling much of anything.  

Bonney said the boy admitted he’d been thinking for about two years about carrying out the crime. He walked detectives through his process that day. He said he chose the second floor of Freeman High School to begin shooting because he knew the most people would be there that day. He said he didn’t have anyone in mind as a target and he didn’t tell anyone about his plans. Bonney said the suspect had reported watching documentaries about the Columbine school shooting in Colorado.

As portions of the transcript were read, a few of the defendant’s family members quietly cried in the gallery.

Detective Mike Drapeau testified detectives later found violent video games and a handgun and ammunition in the boy’s bedroom. They also found a 2015-16 Freeman school yearbook in which faces of students were marked out.

Earlier in the day, the Freeman district’s school psychologist and special education director testified students, parents and teachers are still suffering from the September 2017 shooting. Jody Sweeney described them as being in a state of physical and mental exhaustion.

The first year after the August 2017 shooting, in which one student was killed and three injured, Sweeney said, people coped by just trying to get through the school year. Once summer came and they had time to process things, she says, people became deeply feeling the effects of the trauma. They became irritable and, in some cases, students were the ones comforting adults.

Also taking the stand was Freeman Middle School Principal Jim Straw, who at the time was on medical leave, but working partial days at the high school. He says he and his colleagues have made special accommodations for at least eight children who couldn’t bear full-time at school. He said he hoped that as time passed, they would eventually come back to school full time, but for some, those wounds are still too raw. He told of an incident at a Red Robin restaurant in Yakima during a trip for the one of the district’s basketball teams to a state tournament. At the restaurant a balloon popped and reignited the trauma that some of the students felt when hearing loud, sudden noises.

Sheriff’s Deputy Ron Nye told his story of arriving at Freeman High School that morning from another school on campus and finding custodian Joe Bowen detaining the shooter, face down on the ground. He admitted that the experience led him to doubt whether he wanted to continue in law enforcement because of the effect it had on him and his family.

Closing arguments in the hearing will be made Monday morning. After that, Judge Michael Price will have the final decision about the venue of the upcoming trial, juvenile or adult court.