IDAHO
Tina Kunishige, near where Arfee was shot by a police officer, is one of many still upset with how Coeur d’Alene has handled the tragedy.
Dog Town Last month’s fatal shooting of Arfee still haunts the Lake City BY DANIEL WALTERS
C
raig Jones makes the entire drive — from a downtown Coeur d’Alene coffee shop to his father’s barn in Hayden — like this: sitting in his dog’s blood and broken glass, a hole in the van window beside him from the bullet that killed Arfee. “[The van] still smells like him to this day,” Jones says. On July 9, a Coeur d’Alene police officer responding to a report of a suspicious van shot Arfee, Jones’
2-year-old black Labrador, in the parking lot of Java on Sherman. Nearly six weeks later, Jones is still reeling. He and Arfee had slept on the same pillow. Arfee was his constant companion on wallpapering jobs and dirt-bike expeditions, a source of joy after Jones’ separation from his wife and the death of his mother. Now Jones keeps thinking about the trail of blood in
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his van, picturing Arfee dragging himself wounded to the back, confused why he had been shot. The name “Arfee” had been a joke — the black Lab rarely arfed — but now when Jones types that word into Google, his dog’s death is the first thing that comes up. The shooting has ignited the entire community, spawning multiple Facebook groups, a boycott and a flood of furious messages. After all, the details are incendiary: In an initial press release, the police first called Arfee a “vicious pitbull” instead of a black Lab. Arfee was still inside the van, with the window rolled half up, when he was shot. The cops’ body cameras weren’t turned on, and they left without bothering to find Jones and tell him what happened. The city has so far refused to release the name of Arfee’s shooter. Coeur d’Alene was named “DogTown USA” three years ago by Dog Fancy magazine, but now the Lake City is getting a different sort of attention. ...continued on next page
AUGUST 21, 2014 INLANDER 13