MOUNTLAKE TERRACE — A woman with an apparent history of mental issues was arrested after allegedly pointing a loaded gun at her black Muslim neighbors, including two children.
The woman, who is white, was arrested by Mountlake Terrace police Monday for investigation of a hate crime and second-degree assault.
Around 4 p.m. that day, the 67-year-old suspect reportedly pointed a pistol at the 34-year-old mother and her two daughters, both under the age of 15, according to court papers.
According to a reports filed by police, the suspect yelled: “Go back to your country, GET OUT!” And, “It’s scary times and your people don’t belong here!”
Protesters around the country have condemned police brutality and racism following the death of George Floyd, who died at the hands of police in Minnesota last week.
The mother called police and told officers she and her children feared for their lives. An apartment manager of the Mountlake Terrace complex where they live heard the threat, police wrote in court documents.
“This is a very unfortunate time to be saying the things that she did,” Chief Pete Caw said. “We take that very seriously.”
Once officers arrived, the suspect barricaded herself in her apartment. She was not cooperative, Caw said.
Eventually, she opened up and police recovered at least two guns, according to the arrest report.
One matched a description given by the other woman. It was a silver Ruger .22-caliber revolver with a wooden handle, police wrote. It was found in a bedroom closet, fully loaded, the officer noted.
Caw said as of now there are no plans to seek an extreme-risk protection order against the suspect, though “it’s certainly a possibility.” The orders are designed to keep firearms away from those who pose an imminent danger to themselves or others.
Police wrote that the woman seemed to be having mental health issues, and she didn’t believe the officers were actually police.
Online records from the state Department of Licensing show the woman also was at one point a registered nurse, but in 2016, she lost her credentials because “a psychiatric evaluation found her unable to practice.” She fought that decision and represented herself in court, in Thurston and Snohomish counties, a court database shows.
Court documents filed in Snohomish County Superior Court say she made a report to the Edmonds Police Department in 2012 with worries about “occult practices.” Two years later, an anonymous person alerted her employer to concerns about her mental health, she alleged in the paperwork.
“The report I submitted to the Edmonds Police, as an informed Catholic, about my safety being threatened in response to the effects of occult practices that were conjured up against me producing mild paranormal effects does not constitute incompetence to practice nursing,” she wrote in court papers.
At one point, she emailed a law clerk with her new address, saying, “I have moved due to safety concerns again.”
In different documents filed in the court case, she wrote that a neighbor may have placed a “hex” on her property. She accused others of being involved with the “occult.”
She wrote that she had been a nurse for 36 years and had never been diagnosed with a mental illness.
The woman was being held in the Snohomish County Jail. Her bail was set Tuesday at $20,000.
Stephanie Davey: 425-339-3192; sdavey@heraldnet.com; Twitter: @stephrdavey.
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