Associated Press
BREMERTON — A 23-year-old Seattle woman was charged with assault Tuesday after authorities said she attacked her boyfriend and several crew members — and disrobed — on a Washington state ferry, prompting the vessel to return to dock.
Witnesses reported that the woman had been punching her 51-year-old boyfriend in the head and neck on the ferry Hyak on Monday night when the crew members tried to intervene. Three were spit on, slapped or scratched, and a fourth had a pair of glasses knocked off, a Washington State Patrol trooper wrote in a probable cause statement.
“Sounds like it was a pretty wild night for us,” Washington State Ferries spokesman Ian Sterling said.
The brawl ranged all over the vessel, from the passenger deck to the car deck. The woman stripped as the crew tried to restrain her, the trooper wrote.
The woman “did pull her pants back up but continued walking through the ferry topless until she was finally restrained and ferry workers were able to drape her zip-up sweatshirt over her top half,” a Washington State Patrol trooper wrote.
The incident occurred on the 7:55 sailing from Bremerton to Seattle on Monday night. There were other passengers aboard, but the ferry was only sparsely occupied, Sterling said.
The captain put the vessel in reverse and returned it to dock when it became clear the situation was out of hand. Bremerton police took her into custody and helped load her into the state trooper’s cruiser, charging papers said. When the trooper drove onto the ferry, she “appeared to be foaming at the mouth and screaming at everyone,” the trooper wrote.
The woman faces two felony counts of third-degree assault. She was ordered held on $15,000 bail during an appearance Tuesday in Kitsap County District Court. Her case will be transferred into Superior Court, the county prosecutor’s office said.
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