Late-night gunfire under investigation

COEUR d'ALENE - Jonathan Tevis wanted to focus on a 10-mile race Sunday.

Instead, his thoughts continually returned to what he discovered just outside his home Sunday morning: A bullet hole in his girlfriend's car.

"I had so much stuff going on in my head the whole run," he said of Sundae Sunday in Spokane. "I didn't want to go, but I told a whole bunch of people I'd drive them there."

The race didn't go well, as the Coeur d'Alene man was shaken at knowing his girlfriend and their three children could have been hurt.

"We realized we could have lost somebody," he said.

Coeur d'Alene police are investigating the incident that happened Saturday night.

Sgt. Christie Wood said it appears someone fired one shot from a gun while either driving or walking past the Third Street house about 11:30 p.m. Saturday. A bullet struck the left back door of the 1990 Cadillac Deville, passed through the seat and hit the dash.

Wood said there are no suspects, but an unknown man came to the front door of the home Friday asking to speak to the victim's boyfriend.

Tevis, 31, said he and his family heard a loud boom late Saturday. He looked out the window, but didn't see anyone. He did notice other neighbors were turning on their lights, too.

"We didn't know what it was," he said.

The next morning, while leaving for the race at 5:45 a.m., he saw the bullet hole.

It was especially frightening, he said, because just 30 minutes or so before the shooting, his girlfriend and their three children had been in the car parked in their driveway.

"Within a half hour that this happened, my daughter's head was sleeping right on this," he said, pointing to the arm rest of the back door. "If they had waited for me 15 minutes to half hour later, somebody could have been hurt."

He said it might have been someone messing around with a gun, or a racially motivated incident.

"We have no clue if it's random. We don't know if it's an act of racism. We don't know. They didn't shoot my car," he said.

Tevis is white while his girlfriend is Hispanic and black. They have lived in the home four years and never had any problems.

"I don't see any reasons," he said. "We don't have any quarrels with anyone. It's the first time anything like this has happened."

Tevis said his girlfriend was frightened.

"She doesn't want to drive her car, she doesn't want to leave the house," he said. "She's scared somebody wants to kill her."

Tevis said the family was so shaken they spent Sunday night away from their home.

"It makes you really insecure about living your life, period," he said.