Armed man arrested in hate crime confrontation outside Seattle mosque

Seattle police said they arrested a man who was armed with a stolen gun, pellet gun and baseball bat after he confronted two other men outside a mosque in the Northgate neighborhood Tuesday.

The two victims said they were standing in the parking lot of a mosque at 15th Avenue Northeast and Northgate Way about 1 p.m. when they saw a man hitting trees with a baseball bat as he walked toward them.

One of the victims said he also noticed that the man had a silver handgun in his waistband.

The armed man then asked the two men “where they were from,” according to the victims, and argued with them when they said they were from the United States.

The man then dropped his bat to the ground, pulled the gun out of his waistband and began waving it around, police said. Both victims walked away from the man, who smashed a passenger-side mirror of a parked car as he left the scene.

Officers found the man sitting on a park bench at Victory Creek Park and took him into custody.

Police said the man was carrying a baseball bat, a “very realistic looking” silver pellet gun that appear to be a handgun, as well as a real pistol, which had been reported stolen in Lakewood.

Officers arrested the 28-year-old on charges of property damage, assault and malicious harassment, which is Washington’s hate crime statute, and booked him into the King County Jail.

No one was hurt.

Cox Media Group