An Idaho man antagonizing people near Division Street and Second Avenue in Spokane as he streamed it live on his YouTube channel had multiple chances to leave before he shot and seriously injured a person Friday night during a confrontation, according to court records.
Prosecutors have charged 36-year-old Hoyt Webb, of Coeur d’Alene, with shooting and injuring an unarmed man upset with Webb’s provocative language and video recording of people who asked him to stop.
“You went to this location for your own entertainment,” Court Commissioner Eugene Cruz said at Webb’s first appearance in Spokane Superior Court Monday, “strictly to antagonize the folks experiencing homelessness and hardships.”
In his hourlong video that Webb posted to his “Kootenai County Press” YouTube channel, he is seen walking down Second Avenue and Division Street narrating about “crackheads” who were hanging around the area notorious for criminal activity such as open drug use and violent acts. The video ends after police say Webb shot 47-year-old homeless man Thomas Hatch, who remained hospitalized in critical condition Monday morning, according to Providence Sacred Heart Medical Center spokesperson Allie Hyams.
Hatch’s older brother, Eric Kessler, told Cruz during the court hearing his brother is “barely clinging to life.” He left the courthouse in tears Monday on his way to the hospital.
“If his heart stops again, they can’t revive him,” Kessler said after the hearing. Hatch was homeless because he had an accident as a child that caused him neurological damage, Kessler added. It’s why he fell into the wrong crowd. But Kessler still loves his “baby brother” no matter what, he said.
Webb says on his YouTube page he is a “credentialed reporter and photographer with The Constitution First Amendment Press Association.” The association gives out free press credentials to people who apply for them, according to its website. The association tells people to “beware” of “qualified journalists” who have biased interests. It offers anonymity to its members.
Under Webb’s “Kootenai County Press” page, he has multiple videos of himself traveling throughout Washington, mostly in Spokane, and goading employees and police officers at various locations.
Webb, who is wearing a Trump 2024 hat in the video and holding a selfie stick, is seen in his livestream motioning the camera toward the 7-Eleven on South Division Street to his viewers and repeatedly telling them, “Spokane, Washington, ladies and gentlemen.”
Spokane Mayor Lisa Brown last Tuesday declared an emergency for the area specific to the city’s opioid crisis.
Few people are seen at the 7-Eleven at the time he is recording. Some who pass by in the video flip him off, and he shouts expletives at them.
After seeing a man with a knife downtown, Webb walks back to his parked car and retrieves his gun, telling his viewers, “It’d be a bad idea if they pull anything out on me, ’cause I’m pro-Second Amendment.”
At one point, a man walks past Webb with a confused look on his face. Webb claims the man “ran up” with a knife, but no knife is visible in his video.
Other people nearby begin to approach Webb and tell him to leave after he walks through a group gathered along a sidewalk about a block south of Second near the corner of Short Avenue and Division. He yells back he is “constitutionally protected,” the video shows, and claims people are holding knives, guns and rocks. A rock is seen laying in the street, but no other weapons are visible in the video.
At this point, “Webb still does not retreat,” Spokane Police Detective Kelsey Walker wrote in court records.
Webb then claims he was attacked with a pipe wrench, but the video doesn’t show anyone near him at the time.
“I’m trying to help you guys,” he claims, but does not elaborate how he intends to do that.
The confrontation escalates as he screams at people to drop a rock he claims that at least one of them is holding. A man nearby is heard saying, “Nothing on me,” though later a woman could be seen throwing one, which fell far short of where Webb was standing.
Webb at this point is yelling at people to get back. He shouts the full sentence “I feel threatened” numerous times. At one point, two women and a man walk across the several lanes of Division Street as traffic stops. One of the women is taking her own video of Webb as the man yells at Webb, asking him how it feels. More people are milling about and walking near Webb.
Hatch walks by with a mostly empty drink cup in his left hand and nothing in his right. As the confrontation continues, with Webb continuing to scream “I feel threatened,” he fires a “warning shot” at the ground, according to records.
He then fires again, and it is alleged he shoots Hatch, who is briefly seen lying on the ground.
Hatch’s brother spoke directly to Webb on Monday: “Just because people are homeless or on drugs, doesn’t make them a lesser person” or deserving of being shot, he said.
“I believe you are evil by your videos, with malice in your heart,” Kessler said. “If he dies, I will be at every court hearing – burn my face into your brain, I’m not going anywhere.”
After the shooting, Webb is approached by a man in an orange jacket who tells him, “That was not self-defense,” and that he’s going to jail.
Webb points his gun at the man, who cowers in fear as if he’s about to be shot until he runs away, the video shows.
“It does not appear Webb made any attempts to retreat back to his vehicle, to call 911 for help, or ask anyone to call for help,” court records say.
Webb told police that he felt like he was in fear for his life, court records say, and that he “regrets being down there.” He was booked into the Spokane County Jail around 2 a.m. Saturday and is being held on a $75,000 bond.
Webb declined a jailhouse interview Monday.
It’s unclear why Webb repeatedly travels to Spokane to make videos for his “Kootenai County Press” YouTube channel.
His listed address is at his parents’ home in a subdivision that rests at the bottom of mountain ridges that ring Wolf Lodge Valley.
It’s north, by way of country roads, of the well-known Wolf Lodge Inn Restaurant, which can be seen near the Idaho state Highway 97 interchange with Interstate 90 east of Coeur d’Alene.
Neighbors all know Webb’s parents, Gene and Agnes Webb, as neighbors who keep to themselves but always offer a friendly wave as they drive past.
For decades, the couple has lived in a green home along Wolf Lodge Creek that is surrounded by like homes, many with deer-fenced gardens, large lush green fields and rows of shade trees.
The neighbors also said they know Hoyt Webb, not by name, but because of his gun.
In May 2023, neighbors said a man who fit Hoyt Webb’s description began firing a gun in the neighborhood.
“Every time he’s been out, he’s been an issue,” neighbor Jeff Cleveland said.
When Hoyt Webb began shooting, Cleveland, 49, walked over and confronted him about shooting in the neighborhood.
“I told him to knock i t off,” Cleveland said. “He replied, ‘What are you going to do about it?’ ”
Cleveland’s wife, Tracie, said Webb’s parents are quiet and stay to themselves.
They live in a home that a neighbor said was built by Rocky Bridges, who died in 2015. Bridges played for both the Brooklyn Dodgers and Los Angeles Angels in an 11-year major league career.
Other than a couple times, the Webbs have declined to join in the neighborhood social events, neighbors said.
Efforts to reach the Webbs at their home Monday were unsuccessful. As a reporter knocked on their door, two whitetail does fed on tall grass in the family’s otherwise empty-fenced pasture.
Several other neighbors confirmed the statements by the Clevelands, but did not want to disclose their names.
Tracie Cleveland said neighbors sought out the secluded, wooded setting for a reason.
The locals notice when a strange vehicle arrives. Another neighbor said anyone acting suspicious will have their descriptions broadcast by an informal telephone network to everyone in the area within minutes.
“You won’t find anyone on the block who would say a bad word about Gene or Agnes,” Tracie Cleveland said. “The only issue we had was the shooting. There was not any direction you could shoot out here and be safe.”
