Two deputies fight for their lives after Spangle shooting leaves three dead

Two Spokane County sheriff’s deputies, each the parent of two young children, were fighting for their lives after being shot while trying to enter a home near Spangle, Washington. Three other people were dead, including the suspected shooter. A wounded woman who had reached a neighbor’s house for help was also hospitalized. The latest reports, late Tuesday and into early Wednesday, still described both deputies as critical. ^{2 6}

The domestic-violence response on Tuesday, November 3, 2026, left investigators with two urgent tasks: establish what happened inside and outside the South Smythe Road home, and determine whose shots caused each fatal injury. Sheriff John Nowels said deputies came under fire as they attempted to enter. Three deputies returned fire, but authorities had not explained how the suspect or the other two people died. ¹

The death toll does not include either deputy. The three people who died were a person deputies found in the yard, another person found inside the home and the suspect. Their names, along with those of the injured woman and deputies, were not given in the reviewed updates. ^{1 2}

One wounded deputy was a current SWAT team member. The other was a K-9 deputy who had recently served on SWAT. Nowels described consoling their families during treatment and asked that their privacy be respected. ¹

Deputies first responded around 2:25–2:30 p.m. Pacific Standard Time to a home in the 18700 block of South Smythe Road, south of Spokane. A woman had run to a neighbor’s house and said her brother had shot her, according to Nowels’s account in The Spokesman-Review. That establishes her reported relationship to the shooter; it does not establish the relationships of the other people found at the property or who called dispatch. ¹

Deputies launched a drone and found someone lying in the yard. They determined the person was dead and moved the body to a safe location. Further drone observations indicated an active threat, Nowels said, and responding personnel believed more people inside could be threatened or need rescue. The suspect also had an active felony warrant for eluding police. That warrant is background to the response, not an established explanation for the violence. ¹

The attempted entry came later—not at the time of the initial response. At about 3:15 p.m., SWAT personnel and deputies approached the home and tried to break down the door. Gunfire came from inside as they attempted to enter, Nowels said. Three deputies returned fire, and another victim was found on the floor inside. Two deputies suffered life-threatening wounds. The public account does not establish the precise positions of those involved or the sequence of individual shots. ¹

The wounded deputies reached Providence Sacred Heart Medical Center in Spokane by different routes: one in a patrol car, the other aboard a Life Flight helicopter. The helicopter landed shortly before 4 p.m. The detailed accounts in The Spokesman-Review and The Seattle Times distinguish those two journeys rather than describing both deputies as airlifted. ^{1 2}

The emergency drew personnel and vehicles from as far away as Kootenai County. Crews initially closed eastbound Interstate 90 and a substantial stretch of U.S. Highway 195 to open a response corridor. Both directions of U.S. 195 between Stutler and Smythe roads remained closed for hours, reopening before the sheriff’s evening news conference. ¹

More than two dozen law-enforcement vehicles lined Eighth Avenue outside Sacred Heart’s emergency room, representing Spokane police, the county sheriff’s office, Spokane Valley police and Spokane Transit Authority police. Chaplains entered the hospital, and reporters saw some deputies crying. Those scenes conveyed the gravity of the injuries; they were not evidence that either wounded deputy had died. ¹

Providence’s initial 5:04 p.m. update said it was treating three people and had no condition details to provide. That was an early hospital statement, not a later prognosis or an indication that the deputies’ conditions had improved. Subsequent late-Tuesday reporting continued to describe both deputies as critical. ^{35 38 37}

The woman’s condition was reported differently as the evening developed. KREM’s early November 3 account described critical injuries; the later detailed Spokesman-Review account described non-life-threatening gunshot wounds, as did FOX 13’s late-Tuesday update. The latest supported description is that she was hospitalized with non-life-threatening injuries. It should not be confused with the deputies’ continuing critical conditions. ^{38 1 5}

By the evening briefing, Nowels said the scene was secure and there was “no outstanding threat to the public right now.” Officers expected to remain because the property was still a crime scene. Descriptions of the suspect as barricaded during the response do not establish an ongoing standoff after that announcement. ¹

Spokane police took over the investigation into the deaths and the incident at the residence. Washington State Patrol is investigating the deputies’ use of deadly force. The three deputies who fired their weapons were placed on administrative leave while that use of force is examined. Those assignments begin the work of establishing what happened; they are not findings about who killed whom. ^{1 9}

The central uncertainty remains consequential. Deputies returning fire does not, by itself, establish that their shots killed the suspect, and authorities had not disclosed another cause of death. Nor had they publicly accounted for each of the other fatal injuries. Nowels cautioned that fuller answers could take days. For now, the scene was secure, two families were waiting through critical treatment, and three deaths still required an explanation. ^{1 2}