Attorney and Spokane Human Rights commissioner named in wrongful death suit after pushing neighbor

Patrick Monahan found water on his upstairs bathroom floor. The window was open, facing the neighbor’s party next door.

The 73-year-old South Hill resident walked next door on July 6, 2024, to find out if his neighbor, Brennan “Boone” J. Schreibman, or one of his party guests sprayed a garden hose through his window in apparent retaliation for someone calling the Spokane Fire Department.

Fire crews had arrived several minutes earlier and directed Schreibman to douse the fire at his backyard gathering, located at 1823 S. Maple Blvd. But it wasn’t Monahan who called the fire department, said his wife’s attorney, Martin Peltram.

According to court records detailing witness accounts, Monahan told someone at the party that he wanted to speak with Schreibman, 34.

As Schreibman, a lawyer and the vice chair of the Spokane Human Rights Commission, came out of the house and approached Monahan, he yelled, “What the (expletive) do you want?”

According to a witness, Schreibman then pushed Monahan to the ground with a hard shove causing injuries that later killed him. That interaction is now the focus of a wrongful death lawsuit filed by Monahan’s widow.

The fall rendered Monahan unconscious. Schreibman then dragged him closer to Schreibman’s home, said Charles Cormier, Monahan’s stepson who watched from a window.

Schreibman’s “act of dragging Patrick Monahan caused him to repeatedly strike the back of his head on the concrete sidewalk,” according to the lawsuit.

Nobody attending the party at Schreibman’s called 911 for nine minutes, according to dispatch records.

Monahan never regained full consciousness and died seven months later on Feb. 11.

Reached by telephone on Monday, Schreibman referred all questions to the police reports and declined to comment about the wrongful death suit filed by Monahan’s family.

In a court filing in response to the lawsuit, Schreibman’s attorneys, Miller and Sara R. Shapland, denied virtually everything in the wrongful death suit and alleged that Monahan’s death “may have been caused by subsequent, superseding, intervening, and/or unrelated events that Defendant is not responsible for that occurred after July 6, 2024.”

Spokane Police response

Dispatch records reflect a chaotic scene as first responders took Cormier’s initial call at 10:28 p.m. and tried to make sense of what was happening.

“Step dad was knocked out and some drug the body somewhere?” according to the log notes, which include acronyms and shortened words.

It appears that the dispatcher and Cormier continued to talk as information was relayed to responding police officers.

The “dad went over to confront the neighbors about a party. Then they hit him,” the log reads in part. “No weapons seen. Heard someone say, ‘Why did you bring a knife.’ comp’s story not making a lot of sense. He’s really calm for what just” occurred.

Dispatchers then began searching records for any other calls from the address.

Then at 10:37 p.m., dispatchers got a call from someone at Schreibman’s house.

Ten minutes earlier, a neighbor “threatened (complainant) with a knife for having a fire,” dispatchers said, and the complainant, in this case Schreibman, “was able to get the knife away from” neighbor.

Two minutes later, attorney Abby Lesser, who was at the party, relayed the same information, claiming that Monahan “pulled a knife. They shoved the male to get the knife away and he fell, he is currently laying in the yard.”

Officers arrived to find Monahan breathing but unconscious. Ambulance crews transported him at 11:07 p.m. to Providence Sacred Heart Medical Center.

Just before midnight, one of the responding police officers contacted Sgt. Jason Uberuaga, of the department’s Major Crimes Unit, which investigates homicides and other serious crimes. Uberuaga said the unit “would not be responding.”

Aftermath

Peltram, who is representing Monahan’s widow, Karen Monahan, said her husband eventually opened his eyes but never fully regained consciousness.

In the meantime, Karen Monahan, a former registered nurse, had to comfort him and eventually brought him home for a time.

“She is distraught, to say the least,” Peltram said of his client.

Patrick Monahan, a former high school math teacher, received care in some treatment centers in Idaho.

“He could blink his eyes, but couldn’t really communicate,” Peltram said. “He was never able to recover from it.”

He developed an infection and died at Sacred Heart on Feb. 11.

The medical examiner determined his manner of death to be homicide. The cause of death was listed as “complications of remote blunt force trauma of the head.”

Peltram said the family wants to know why Spokane police never followed through with the investigation after the autopsy’s findings.

“His cause of death was homicide,” Peltram said, “which leads me to believe that an investigation will be started somewhere. But my client hasn’t spoken to anybody. Nobody has contacted her or her son.”

But Uberuaga, the major crimes sergeant, did have a conversation with Patience Cormier, who is Patrick Monahan’s stepdaughter, on July 10, 2024 – four days after the party.

“Patience had some valid concerns about the incident that she wanted to discuss,” Uberuaga wrote in police reports. “After reading through the reports, I realized there were some questions that needed to be answered.”

The stepdaughter wanted to know why Schreibman had not been charged with assault.

“She asked several questions about why Schreibman felt he had to shove her father to the ground, and why didn’t he just stay inside or try to talk to him,” Uberuaga wrote. “I did not have the answers to several of her concerns.”

Uberuaga then contacted Preston McCollam, Spokane County’s chief deputy criminal prosecutor.

“We discussed at this time due to Monahan’s actions and the fact pattern, the case was not something they would prosecute,” Uberuaga wrote. “We did discuss some questions that needed to be answered that were not, specifically what Schreibman was thinking as he pushed Monahan and why.”

Schreibman’s claim

Uberuaga then contacted Schreibman for a follow-up interview on July 10, 2024, some four days after the incident.

The attorney explained that the fire department came and had Schreibman put out a fire in his backyard, for which Schreibman used his garden hose.

Asked about Monahan’s claim of water being sprayed through his bathroom window, Schreibman replied “that he was not aware of that.”

Uberuaga asked Schreibman where he put the hose when he was done.

“He told me that it was placed by the car port but the next day it was by the walkway between his house and Monahan’s,” the report states.

On the night of the incident, Schreibman said Patrick Monahan came over about 15 minutes after fire crews departed.

Schreibman said Lesser came and told him that a guy was outside “who she thought was intoxicated. The guy had a knife and he demanded talking to him,” the report states.

“Schreibman told me that he remembered thinking or hearing that if he didn’t go out and talk, then the guy said he was going to come in.”

Schreibman walked outside, and he said they both began yelling at each other.

“Schreibman told me that when he came out of his house, he saw Monahan had his right hand down by his side and slightly behind him so he could not see what he had in his hand,” Uberuaga wrote. “He saw the box cutter as they began yelling at each other.”

When he saw a box cutter, Schreibman said he reacted “and shoved Monahan hard to the ground. I asked him why, he told me that it was the only thing that he knew what to do,” Uberuaga wrote. “I asked him what he felt as he saw the box cutter, Schreibman said he was extremely scared, terrified and ‘thought I was going to get cut.’ ”

Schreibman then moved the man’s body off the concrete pathway.

“He said he checked for a pulse and thought he had one but Monahan was not talking or moving,” Uberuaga wrote. “Schreibman advised that he knew 911 had been called at that point to check on Monahan.”

Schreibman said he then took the box cutter inside the house.

Uberuaga asked Schreibman again why he felt the need to confront Patrick Monahan if he knew his neighbor was upset with a knife.

“He told me he remembered either being told, or perceiving that Monahan had said to someone that the homeowner better come outside or he was coming in,” Uberuaga wrote. “He told me that he had a house full of friends to include his fiancé. He wasn’t going to let Monahan come in and harm any of them.”

Uberuaga asked what Schreibman intended to happen to Patrick Monahan.

“He did not intend on harming Monahan the way he did. He said everything happened very quickly and he just reacted,” Uberuaga wrote.

On July 15, 2024, Uberuaga called Patience Cormier, Patrick Monahan’s stepdaughter, to relay the conversation with Schreibman.

“I advised her that I would write the incident up and send it over to the prosecutor to review,” he wrote. “At this time, I do not have probable cause for a crime against Schreibman.”

Wrongful death suit

Peltram’s wrongful death suit describes a very similar set of circumstances, but not the verbal interaction that Schreibman described.

Based on the account from Charles Cormier, who watched the interaction, Patrick Monahan approached Schreibman’s house and asked to speak with him.

“Defendant Schreibman came out and approached Patrick Monahan, who was standing in the front yard of Defendants’ home,” the suit states. “While approaching … Schreibman yelled, ‘What the (expletive) do you want.’

“Without notice … Schreibman pushed Patrick Monahan very hard, knocking him to the ground,” the suit states.

Peltram said Charles Cormier said he never saw a box cutter until a police officer asked him if it looked familiar. Cormier “did not know if it was Patrick’s but said it looks like it could be Patrick’s,” according to a police report.

According to the suit, Schreibman’s “actions constituted assault and battery and/or infliction of physical harm and emotional distress upon Patrick Monahan.”

It seeks damages to be determined at trial, which has tentatively been assigned to Superior Court Judge Rachelle Anderson.

It also asked the judge to award Schreibman for “reasonable attorney fees and costs,” should Schreibman win.

According to his LinkedIn account, Schreibman works for the Riverside NW Law Group after having served as general counsel for Eastern Washington University from 2021 to 2022.

He also worked as a judicial law clerk for U.S. District Court for two years and another two years as an assistant attorney general for Washington state.

On Jan. 1, just over a month before Monahan died, Schreibman was appointed by the Spokane City Council for a second term on the Spokane Human Rights commission, where he serves as the vice chair.