Yakima Co. man accused of hate crime

YAKIMA — A Yakima County man accused of threatening his Mexican-American neighbors with a knife was charged Thursday with malicious harassment, a hate crime.

The sheriff’s office said Donald Dowell Gasperson was angry over a long-standing dispute with his neighbors in the town of Harrah when he went onto their property June 13 with a large knife and called them derogatory names for Mexican-Americans and American Indians.

The Yakima Herald-Republic reported that the 40-year-old is being held on $100,000 bail.

In his report, Sgt. Mike Russell said Gasperson asked him why he wouldn’t “help a white man but was willing to help the thieves across the street.”