LYNNWOOD — She came out of her apartment with a 9-inch kitchen knife and mouth full of hateful words.
She allegedly confronted the Latino man who was working on his car in front of his home nearby.
“The defendant yelled at him about being an illegal immigrant and told him she would get him deported and threatened to stab him with the knife,” Snohomish County deputy prosecutor Katherine Wetmore said in court papers.
The man told the woman, 46, to get back. She returned to her apartment.
A neighbor who witnessed the March 23 incident called 911, summoning sheriff’s deputies.
The woman is now charged with felony malicious harassment, the crime of placing another in fear of harm because of the defendant’s “perception of the victim’s race, color, religion, ancestry” or national origin.
The woman isn’t being named here because she appears to be living with mental illness. The case was put on hold last month after a Snohomish County Superior Court judge received information that she is too ill to assist her attorneys.
The judge ordered that the woman undergo treatment in hopes of restoring her competency to answer the malicious harassment charge.
According to court papers, the woman had been confronting the man and his sister “almost daily,” causing the sister sufficient fear that she was planning to move. Investigators also learned from the woman’s landlord that she was being evicted.
It appears that the defendant’s mental health “has been deteriorating in the last few months with a number of outbursts and complaints from neighbors,” the prosecutor wrote in charging papers.
The woman has no prior felony convictions. She has misdemeanor convictions for drugs and reckless driving.
Scott North: 425-339-3431; north@heraldnet.com. Twitter: @snorthnews.
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