SEATTLE — Seattle police say a man who was carrying a stolen pistol has been arrested for investigation of a hate crime after a confrontation outside a mosque.
The department said the 28-year-old was striking trees with a baseball bat as he approached two men in the parking lot of the Idriss Mosque in the city’s Northgate neighborhood on Tuesday.
The men told investigators the suspect asked them where they were from and then argued with them when they said they were from the United States. He then dropped his bat, pulled a silver pellet gun out of his waistband and smashed a rearview mirror on a parked car as he fled.
Officers found him sitting in a park nearby. They said he had a real gun that had been reported stolen in Lakewood in addition to the pellet gun.
He was arrested for investigation of property damage, assault and malicious harassment under Washington’s hate crime statute.
