Bad News for the Unruly Seattle White Man Who Allegedly Attacked a Black Woman Unprovoked
The King County prosecutor's office said a man called 911 on Feb. 25 to report seeing a white man attacking a woman outside of an apartment building in the First Hill neighborhood. According to King 5, the caller said two people were talking outside when the suspect approached them. Suddenly, the man erupted into a tirade of racial slurs, the caller said, per authorities. The race of the two individuals was not disclosed by authorities but police described the slurs to be 'anti-Black.'
Things didn't stop there. The woman told officers the suspect leapt over a railing and charged at her. She claimed she was knocked to the ground before being hailed with a 'flurry' of punches and kicks while still being down, police said. The 911 caller corroborated this story, adding that the man fled the scene and ran back inside his apartment, per The Seattle Times.
However, once the man left his home, police say he was arrested by responding officers. Police identified the man as 42-year-old John David French. The woman who was allegedly attacked suffered a knee laceration and swelling to her head and face, police said.
French was taken into custody at the King County jail on a $20,000 bail. He was charged with second-degree assault and a hate crime offense. The report says French has no state record of prior convictions or arrests. Though, he did have a previous conviction for wrongful use of a controlled substance during his time in the U.S. Army in 2003, per the report.
Now, he's managed to raise the number of reported hate crimes in the county to nine, per Seattle police data. Hate crimes in the state of Washington are considered a class C felony and carry a maximum sentence of five years.
For the latest news, Facebook, Twitter and Instagram.
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
Chicago Tribune
2 hours ago
- Chicago Tribune
Latest federal list of ‘sanctuary' jurisdictions includes Chicago, Cook County and Illinois
The Department of Justice placed Chicago, Cook County, and the state of Illinois on its latest 'sanctuary jurisdiction list,' with Attorney General Pam Bondi promising to 'continue bringing litigation' against places the department says stand in the way of federal immigration enforcement. Bondi said in a statement Tuesday that she would 'work closely with the Department of Homeland Security to eradicate these harmful policies around the country,' but did not threaten any specific actions beyond what the federal government is already doing. Illinois is among a dozen states, Cook is one of four counties, and Chicago is one of 18 cities on the list. It's the latest federal target on the area following months of local ICE raids, the feds' failed lawsuit challenging local sanctuary policies, and President Donald Trump's continuing criticism of Mayor Brandon Johnson and Gov. JB Pritzker. Both Johnson and Pritzker have also defended the policies in hourslong testimony before Congress earlier this year. The mayor's office and Cook County Board President Toni Preckwinkle's office both said they had not received any additional communication from the DOJ about the city's and county's placement on the list. 'Chicago's Welcoming City policies were first put in place more than 40 years ago by our city's first Black mayor, Harold Washington,' Johnson spokesperson Cassio Mendoza said in an emailed statement. 'We will continue to fight for the dignity of our immigrant, migrant, and refugee communities and stand up for the rights of all Chicagoans against any federal overreach. Our city is safer when police officers can focus on driving down crime and violence and holding offenders accountable, rather than civil immigration enforcement.' Andres Correa, a spokesman for Pritzker, said in an email the DOJ's latest actions were simply a pressure tactic. 'Illinois' bipartisan TRUST Act is, and always has been, fully compliant with federal law, a fact that was affirmed in federal court just last month,' Correa said in a statement. 'Our laws ensure that law enforcement focuses on fighting crime, not enforcing the Trump administration's unlawful policies or politically motivated tactics.' A federal judge in Chicago late last month blocked the Trump administration's challenge of local sanctuary policies, such as the Trust Act, the city's sanctuary ordinance and the county statute banning ICE agents from the Cook County Jail unless they had a criminal warrant unrelated to immigration. Local jurisdictions' choice to not participate in enforcing civil immigration law is protected by the 10th Amendment, U.S. District Judge Lindsay Jenkins wrote. Granting an end-run around that amendment 'would allow the federal government to commandeer States under the guise of intergovernmental immunity — the exact type of direct regulation of states barred by the Tenth Amendment.' The DOJ's list is the second one of its kind to be published. The first, released two months ago on DHS' website, contained hundreds of jurisdictions and was riddled with typos. It spurred pushback from officials who said it was not clear why they were included. The errors included jurisdictions that overwhelmingly voted for Trump and at least one that had declared itself a 'non-sanctuary city.' The issues were never fully explained, and, within days, the list was replaced with a 'Page Not Found' error message. The DOJ noted Louisville had been removed from the list soon after it agreed to honor DHS requests to hold inmates on immigration detainers for up to 48 hours. Given the potential loss of federal funding or increased ICE raids, the 'stakes are too high,' Louisville Mayor Craig Greenberg said of the move to drop its 2017 policy against such detainers, according to the Louisville Courier Journal. Bondi celebrated the change and urged other jurisdictions to do the same. .
USA Today
5 hours ago
- USA Today
Elina Svitolina ripped bettors for crossing line after Naomi Osaka loss
In case it wasn't already clear, bets you make on any sporting event are your responsibility and YOUR responsibility alone. An athlete is not obligated to follow through and will not tailor their performance based on whatever transaction a complete stranger agreed to behind the scenes (not to mention the ethical and legal concerns). And the moment you start venting out your frustrations to an athlete who "let you down," you've lost the plot entirely. That seems to be what's happened with Elina Svitolina. After losing to Naomi Osaka in the National Bank Open quarterfinals on Tuesday, the No. 13-ranked tennis player in the world took to her Instagram story to share screenshots of a handful of "shameful" messages from bettors filled with vitriol and anger over her failure at the hands of Osaka. Svitolina included messages that invoked death threats. Some mocked Svitolina's Ukrainian heritage amid the country's ongoing war with Russia. Others made racist comments about her husband, Gaël Monfils, a Black fellow professional tennis player. For obvious sensitivity reasons, I will not link out any of the images here. You can find them in Svitolina's story if you're so inclined. To say the least, this is not OK. Not at all. 'To all the bettors: I'm a mom before I'm an athlete,' Svitolina wrote in her Instagram story. 'The way you talk to women – to mothers – is SHAMEFUL. If your moms saw your messages, they'd be disgusted.' Friends, please remember what I'm about to say. Just because you lost a bet over a sports outcome does not mean you get to start harassing the person you think cost you money. Athletes are still, and stay with me here, human beings who deserve common decency like any of us. They're not props. The only person who costs you money in these kinds of situations is you. The betting buck starts and stops with you. Always.
Yahoo
5 hours ago
- Yahoo
MasterChef used to be a hug of a show, now it is just uncomfortable viewing
If telly and food have one thing in common, it's the importance of comfort. French onion soup, shepherd's pie, sticky toffee pudding; all classic comfort foods. As a three-course meal, they might be accompanied by some nice comfort viewing, like the BBC's cookery contest MasterChef, an hour-long hug of a show that returns this week. But, in the wake of allegations made against presenter Gregg Wallace and his co-anchor John Torode, which have resulted in the corporation severing ties with both men, this usually reassuring series is tinged with a strange, bitter aftertaste. When reports about Wallace's alleged misconduct broke last November, the BBC was still filming its latest competition, the 21st series of the show to air since it was revived in 2005. Wallace immediately announced that he would step aside from presenting during the investigation, with chef and former MasterChef: The Professionals judge Anna Haugh taking his place in the final episodes. Last month, following the conclusion of the investigation, Wallace was sacked, with his co-host, Australian-born chef Torode, also axed after scrutiny on the show's workplace culture unearthed an instance of racist language. This series – already filmed (and largely edited) by the time Wallace and Torode received their P45s – looked doomed. Yet, despite one contestant, Sarah Shafi, requesting that the show be scrapped (she eventually agreed to be edited out of it instead), the BBC has gone ahead with the broadcast. It makes for uncomfortable viewing. MasterChef is not thrill-a-minute television. It is a gentle, reliable programme that viewers have on in the background while doing the washing up after dinner. Recent series have run for 24 episodes, broadcast in three-episode tranches over a couple of months, meaning that the contestants – alongside Wallace and Torode – spend much of the late summer living in our houses. With Wallace and Torode both appearing here, condemned yet oblivious, that easy, ambient watching feels marred. Wallace cuts a distinctive figure on TV. Now, his broad, toadish smile evokes not just his cheeky greengrocer persona but the long index of allegations about inappropriate behaviour. Viewers (even Wallace's defenders) will be preternaturally alert to any sense that he is straying towards that dreaded 'banter'. 'Your girlfriend is a Disney princess?!' he marvels at a young cook at one point. 'Yeah,' the contestant replies. 'It's a tough life, Gregg.' Clearly no line is crossed in an exchange like that, yet the reports that have surfaced over the past year have transformed that genial rapport into a warning sign. An amber flag, if you will. 'Oh God, that was stressful,' a young challenger, Thea, says, pulling a face after a brief interaction with Wallace at the kitchen counter. It is the light, breezy comment that contestants have always made, yet it is also something that you can imagine being spoken in a more troubling context. Some viewers would never notice that, while others' minds will be drawn to it. It is indicative of the tension facing the BBC. There was no easy way out of this mess. To abandon the series would be to privilege the BBC's reputation over the hard work of not only the contestants, but a large cast and crew who stretch far beyond the show's two hosts (though when the credits roll and 'John Torode MBE' and 'Gregg Wallace MBE' get top billing, it is a salient reminder of how deeply embedded in the establishment bad behaviour is). Airing this series was a risk, yet the most striking thing is the uncanny normality of these new episodes. The allegations were looming, and yet filming went on. The result is something that, on the surface, feels inoffensively bland. An illustration, then, of how a toxic culture can seemingly hide in the plainest of plain sight.
