UNIVERSITY PLACE, Wash. — A University Place man was charged with a hate crime after prosecutors said he targeted two men working at a 7-Eleven, assaulting them and threatening to kill them because they are from India.
Investigators said that, even as he was being arrested, Sayed Hashimi asked officers to shoot the men for him. “He asked our deputies to go in there and finish them off because our deputies would be patriots for doing so,” said Detective Ed Troyer of the Pierce County Sheriff’s Office.
In a probable cause affidavit, prosecutors said the 27-year-old Hashimi had been drinking when he went into the store on Tuesday. When he started harassing the men working there, he was asked to leave, but instead, he punched two employees, according to charges.
When University Place police arrived, officers said Hashimi continued to threaten the men before asking the officers to shoot him so he could receive the blessings of Allah. Charges state Hashimi then threatened the men in the Afghan language, saying, “This time, I punch you in the head. Next time, I’m putting a bullet in your head,” and, “I’m going back to Afghanistan to learn to be a suicide bomber.”
Hashimi was arrested and charged with two counts of assault and two counts of malicious harassment for allegedly targeting the men because of their ethnicity. “The big problem here is that he’s made threats when he gets out of jail to come back and finish them off,” said Troyer. “He went in there and basically went after them for their nationality so we are looking at this as a hate crime.”
Hashimi is an Afghan citizen and was told he could face deportation if convicted. He pleaded not guilty to the allegations and was ordered held on $200,000 bail.
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