SPOKANE — A man has been accused of second-degree murder nine months after he allegedly struck a 64-year-old man in the head with a skateboard at a Spokane Transit Authority bus stop, according to police.
Shawn Shippy, 20, made his initial appearance in Spokane County Superior Court on Monday. His bond was set at $500,000.
A witness at the bus stop, which is across the street from the Trent Resource and Assistance Center on East Trent Avenue, told police she was waiting for the bus on Feb. 19 when a man, later identified as Harold Kahoonei, approached her and asked her for money. She asked him to leave her alone several times but he did not.
Shippy then got involved by trying to use pepper spray on Kahoonei, the woman said in court documents.
She said Shippy started chasing Kahoonei in the middle of Trent Avenue before he struck Kahoonei in the head with a skateboard and fled.
She told police the sound of Shippy hitting Kahoonei was “so loud that it echoed from the nearby buildings,” documents say.
The woman told police Kahoonei laid motionless in the street while traffic passed by until he eventually got up and got on a bus.
She said Kahoonei then exited the bus after contacting STA security. She said she has known Shippy for several years and had seen Kahoonei a few times before.
A Spokane police officer responded at about 5:40 p.m. to the reported assault and spoke with Kahoonei, according to documents. The officer wrote that injuries to Kahoonei’s face were consistent with his statements he was assaulted.
Kahoonei died March 5 at MultiCare Deaconess Hospital from complications of blunt force injuries of the head, according to the Spokane County Medical Examiner’s Office.
Hypertensive and atherosclerotic cardiovascular disease and probable methamphetamine use were significant contributing factors to his death, Makinzie Mott, deputy medical examiner at the Spokane County Medical Examiner’s Office, wrote in documents.
Shippy has been in the Spokane County Jail since Thanksgiving and remained there Tuesday, according to the online jail roster.
He is set for an arraignment next Tuesday.
Two other people were charged with second-degree murder after beating a man to death with a skateboard in a separate incident in August in the Chief Garry Park neighborhood.
