Now Free, Man Who Alleges Wrongful Conviction Wants Justice from WA Police

In December 2009, Gregory Sharkey and his friends walked past a house in Spokane, Washington. Someone from a nearby home pointed a laser at them. Annoyed, one of Sharkey’s friends, Dominic Shaver, walked over to confront the people responsible. Sharkey unsuccessfully tried to defuse the escalating situation—but another member of his group, Tony Dawson, pulled out a gun, shot, and wounded a man named Charles Everett—sparking a chain of events that robbed Sharkey of 15 years of his life.

Sharkey was ultimately convicted of the shooting. After maintaining his innocence for a decade and a half, he was released last month—and now is fighting to see that the people who threw him behind bars are held accountable.

“Going home after 15 years in prison doesn’t feel real,” Sharkey told The Appeal. “Being given life in prison for something I didn’t do damaged me psychologically. I literally watched my dreams and goals erode into darkness with no light at the end of the tunnel. This experience made it nearly impossible to maintain my humanity.” 

The Spokane Police Department and county Prosecuting Attorney’s Office did not respond to requests for comment.

Reports indicate that Shaver contacted the police, said that Dawson had shot someone, and added that Sharkey was present during the shooting. Later on, while investigating a separate shooting, police found two of Dawson’s guns in a hot tub and began assuming there was a second shooter in the Everett case. Law enforcement began investigating Shaver as the second gunman. Shaver then pointed the finger at Sharkey.

According to a statement given by a witness named Margaret Shults, police insinuated that they believed Sharkey was the shooter. At the time, Shults was facing 10 years in prison as an alleged accomplice in a vehicle theft. Prosecutors offered to reduce her prison sentence significantly if she testified that Sharkey committed the shooting. 

A police report says Shults took officers to West Kiernan Street—about 10 blocks away from where the shooting occurred—and pulled a piece of metal from a telephone pole. Law enforcement indicated that the metal was a bullet fragment from a .38 caliber gun that Sharkey allegedly used to shoot Everett.

Despite findings from a private investigator hired by the state, Rod Staudinger, who reported that there was no evidence of a .38 caliber gun used at the scene of the crime, no one questioned how the police used a fragment found blocks away from the incident to link Sharkey to the incident.

In an interview with The Appeal, Dawson, who admitted to committing the shooting, indicated that he had written to the Spokane prosecutor’s office and said Sharkey was innocent. Although Dawson tried to explain what happened, the prosecutor’s office refused to listen.

Eventually, Dawson pleaded guilty to first-degree assault on a police officer, first-degree attempted robbery, and eight counts of second-degree assault, leaving him with a 12-year prison sentence. 

However, Gregory Sharkey rejected a plea deal and went to trial to prove his innocence. But the move backfired. He was convicted of 10 counts of first-degree assault with gun enhancements, leaving him with more than 180 years in prison.

After Sharkey had spent nearly 15 years in prison, multiple victims of the shooting came forth. They said they believed Sharkey to be innocent and a victim of police and prosecutors’ racial bias.

“Every witness present told Spokane Police that Gregory Sharkey was not involved and did not shoot a gun,” Daniel Bolen, a U.S. National Guard member and a victim of the shooting, told The Appeal.

On the day of Sharkey’s trial, Bolen communicated that a woman, who he believed was a detective, coached and coerced him and the other victims to testify that Sharkey was shooting at them—despite their attempts to convey otherwise. Another shooting victim named Zachory Davis made similar claims.

Bolen believes that law enforcement treated Sharkey differently because he is Black. 

“The way the detectives badgered us and repeated ‘It’s him!’ over and over, in reference to the only black person involved, it was clearly communicated that the police did not care about the truth—they needed Sharkey to be guilty,” Bolen said. 

Bolen said he didn’t feel that justice had been done in the case and that he felt victimized by the police, whom he says tried to change his testimony. 

“I was raised to believe these institutions are righteous, but as an adult with much more life experience, I know the truth,” Bolen said. “These institutions were designed to serve some, but not all, which creates inequality.”

Tony Dawson has since been released from prison after serving 12 years. In an interview with The Appeal, he said he also tried to defend Sharkey. 

“I kept trying to explain that Sharkey was innocent,” Dawson said. “It’s a burden on me that he sat in prison over something I did for so long.” 

Eventually, the courts granted Sharkey a resentencing hearing, so long as he dropped the appeal over his conviction. His case would finally be heard. After a long-awaited moment in court, Sharkey was finally released back to his family and community on November 13, 2024—15 years after his arrest. The police and prosecutors who stripped decades from his life did not issue an apology.

Sharkey’s family and supporters are not simply happy that their loved one is home—they want to see those responsible for the miscarriage of justice face consequences.

“We want fairness and accountability within the system so that these types of injustices don’t happen to other people,” Dawson’s mother, Annette McKinley, said. “If there are consequences for people who commit crime, people in positions of power should be held responsible for their unjust actions also.”

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