Suspect stabbed victim in heart for street justice
The man who stabbed someone to death in the STA Plaza in downtown Spokane Saturday called the fatal attack a form of street justice.
Despite almost immediate medical treatment from transit officers and Spokane police, Sean Oie, 49, was pronounced dead a short time later in the emergency room. Ex-convict Donald Phillips admitted to KXLY he killed the victim because Oie had just disrespected Phillips 10 minutes earlier.
The entire incident was caught by STA security cameras.
Phillips admits there was bad blood between him and Oie and said he confronted him about some rude behavior in a Browne’s Addition apartment complex. Phillips said when Oie allegedly blew him off, he stabbed him in the heart.
Oie and his girlfriend were looking at a reader board bus schedule when Phillips approached them from the side and stabbed Oie in the chest.
“He doubled back behind a plant and he surprised them essentially. He stabbed him and walked away,” Susan Meyer, CEO of Spokane Transit Authority, said.
Phillips says he knew Oie from when the pair hung out in Browne’s Addition and the bad blood between the two started about 10 days ago.
“I told him there are certain rules on these streets and you don’t cross them man and you’ve crossed them,” Phillips said. “He stole all my property to go cop heroin with it.”
Phillips claims Oie used some of that heroin on a 17-year-old runaway.
“He shot her up too much, he knew he was going to make her pass out and then he raped her,” Phillips claimed.
So on Saturday Phillips found Oie downtown and confronted him outside the STA Bus Plaza.
“Ten minutes before he lost his life he was talking to me and I confronted him about my property, and the rape and whether it was true or not,” Phillips said.
Phillips says Oie blew off his criticisms and then walked inside the bus plaza. That’s when surveillance cameras show Phillips circle his target and then attacked Oie with the knife.
“His body language told me he didn’t give a f*** what I was trying to say and he didn’t take me serious so now I think he takes me serious,” Phillips said.
Phillips then fled the bus plaza on foot and headed west into Peaceful Valley. Meyer had called Spokane City Councilman Jon Snyder about the incident and Snyder, who got a good description of the suspect from the police department’s Twitter account. Snyder, who coincidentally lives in Peaceful Valley, spotted Phillips coming down a trail, called 911 and then confronted Phillips about what he was doing in the neighborhood.
When told Monday that he had been busted by a city councilman, Phillips said he was OK with that and apologized for scaring Peaceful Valley residents.
