SPIRIT LAKE, Idaho — Many Spirit Lake residents who went to city hall Thursday night for the Kootenai County Sheriff’s Office (KCSO) press conference thought they would learn more about an officer-involved shooting that left 67-year-old S.A. Floyd dead on Nov. 1. Instead, they learned about standard procedure in officer-involved shooting (OIS) cases.
“We still need to have a complete investigation and a complete interview from all the parties involved,” Kootenai County Sheriff Bob Norris said.
Sheriff Norris also wanted to clear some misconceptions about the case, specifically about which agency fired shots.
“There are some media outlets — mostly television — that put officer-involved shooting on their television news and they put a Kootenai County Sheriff vehicle there,” Norris said. “So we got a lot of calls that it was a Kootenai County shooting and not a Spirit Lake Police Department… And then in some of the other media platforms we were seeing some things that we felt like we wanted to — the need to be transparent and provide a press conference.”
Norris set the ground rules early: no questions would be answered about the incident, only about standard OIS operating procedure in North Idaho. This didn’t stop the public and journalists in attendance from asking the questions, usually greeted with responses like, “we’re not going to answer that,” or, “that’s all we’re going to release at this time.”
The responses frustrated those seeking answers to several questions not fully addressed in prior KCSO releases. Why were Spirit Lake officers called to Floyd’s residence? Why did the Spirit Lake officer or officers feel the need to fire their weapon? What exactly was the cause of death for Floyd? Who were the officers in this case?
Among those questions, we got inklings of details. A call for service (KCSO refused to elaborate exactly what for) was put out by Floyd’s next-of-kin at 6:14 p.m. 13 minutes later, two Spirit Lake Police Department (SPLD) officers arrived on scene, with the officer-involved shooting occurring at 6:34. At 6:47, Kootenai County Sheriff’s Department arrived on scene, and over three hours later at 9:48, Floyd was found dead in her residence, an apartment complex for retired, independent living.
The two officers in the case have been placed on leave, taking SLPD from five members to three, at least for the time being.
“At this time, actually having two officers having to go (on) administrative leave under the circumstances of a critical incident does put a tremendous strain on our department,” SPLD Lieutenant Eric Reade said. “In that, we want to assure the public that the safety in the City of Spirit Lake is of no concern because we also have a partnership with the Kootenai County Sheriff’s (Office).”
Interestingly, when asked about the current staffing level, Lt. Reade answered as if his colleagues would be back shortly.
“Dec. 1 we are hiring a new employee,” he said. “We’ll be up to four, and by that time it appears that both of our officers who are off will be back as well.”
Richard Smeltzer says he met Floyd in January and was in contact with her a little over a week before the incident. He says she was 95% blind, and filled in some details about what was going on in Floyd’s life before her death.
“I had been in conversation with the victim, probably about ten days or so, saying that she was distraught because she could not find housing. She had a 60-day, and then all the sudden it went to a 30-day eviction and she had no options,” Smeltzer said. “I honestly believe you could probably call this a police-assisted suicide.”
After the meeting, many of the 70 to 80 Spirit Lake residents in attendance appeared to be understanding of the KCSO’s reluctance to release information, but were frustrated nonetheless.
Sheriff Norris says the lack of information is just standard operating procedure to protect the integrity of the investigation. Once KCSO completes their investigation, they will turn over their findings to the Kootenai County Prosecuting Attorney, who will make a determination on how to proceed. However, he may not receive that report for a while.
“The question was, could this take months to conclude,” Sheriff Norris said. “Yes, it certainly can and will.”
