King County prosecutors have filed hate crime charges against a 24-year-old Auburn man after he allegedly pulled a large knife on a Muslim woman in a health center in the International District.

According to a Seattle Police Department probable cause document, Eric Lee Garner approached a woman inside of the Seattle Indian Health Board office on 12th Avenue S and S Weller Street and and began yelling at her. “You Muslim people scare people when you wear things like that,” Garner allegedly told the woman, who was wearing a head scarf and carrying her six-month-old child. Garner continued to rant at the woman, documents say, repeatedly calling her a “Muslim bitch” and telling her “When I see a black woman, it makes me want to throw up.” Garner then pulled out an 8-10 inch knife, held it in front of the woman, told her “when I see a Muslim woman, I want to put the knife in her vagina” and threatened to cut the woman and her baby.

Records say Garner slammed the knife down on the counter and attempted to unsheath it, but an employee grabbed the knife off the counter. Garner then leapt over the counter, grabbed his knife and fled the building.

The police were called and officers were able to identify Garner from information he’d provided to staff at the health board office earlier in the day

The next day, officers spotted Garner on Capitol Hill and arrested him. Police found a knife in Garner’s waistband and, records say, Garner told officers “he was a white supremacist and was just doing his part” and that he had purchased an AK-47 assault rifle after 9/11. Garner was booked into the King County Jail and, earlier today, was charged with Malicious Harassment, the state’s hate crime statute.

Court documents say Garner has prior convictions for harassment, drugs, theft, indecent exposure, assault, possession of a dangerous weapon, graffiti, malicious mischief and possession of stolen property.

Jonah Spangenthal-Lee: Proving you wrong since 1983.

30 replies on “Man Claiming to Be White Supremacist Charged For Threats at Health Center”

  2. Well, he certainly showed everyone how superior he is to all the brown people in the world. My goodness, he certainly showed us how far superior whites are to every other ethnic group, yes indeedy!

  4. Maybe not go that far, but when you’re on you’re 10th conviction, maybe it’s time for a very long incarceration.

  5. Jesus, that poor woman. That must have been a really terrifying experience, particularly while she was holding her baby.

    You have to wonder what the hell happened to this guy that he turned out so hateful and violent and angry and horrible. Was he just continuously raped and beaten growing up or what?

  6. @1 Put them on all on a ferry in the Puget sound and sink it. In a couple of years we’ll have a nice man-made coral reef. Everyone wins.

  9. A bit overcautious in the headline saying he only “claims” to be a white supremacist; go ahead and take him at his word.

    No one is dispuing his “claim.”

  11. Has it occured to anyone that this guy might be nuts? Lots of people with extensive records for minor crimes suffer from untreated mental illness.

  12. @ 7,

    Well, I thought Garner would approve a “final solution” since he’s a white supremacist/neo-nazi wannabe.

  15. If that guy went into Starbucks, and brandished his knife, do you know what they would ask him?

    Sir, may I help you?

  17. WORKHOUSES, Fnarf! Some nice wholesome Victorian restraint, corporal punishment, the whole nine yards!

  18. I can’t help but wonder if this was a man of color, be it brow, red, black, etc, if he would be on his 10th strike or if after his 3rd he’d get some sort of mandatory 5 year conviction. Does Washington have no 3rd strike policy? This guy has been convicted on 9 previous crimes. You’d think that they wouldn’t just let him back out after that many…

  19. virus@18- sounds like most of his crimes were misdemeanors, so 3 strikes wouldn’t apply. As to mental illness, yes, he’s got a broken mind and can’t be blamed for that. But we can’t just shuffle him into our mental health system and hope he goes away either. Life is complicated in all kinds of shitty ways.
    If he was a minority of some kind, maybe we’d luck out and the cops would shoot him 2 dozen times during a routine traffic stop. Best solution available to us: Keep giving him the negative attention he desires by locking him up under whatever laws we can. He keeps getting out, until someday he finally does something horrible enough to send him up for life, and… That’s as good as it gets.

  20. What truly amazes me, is that bat-shit crazy people like this ACTUALLY believe they are “true” Americans and what is best for this, or any, nation.

  22. He needs medication, counseling, and restricted access to knives and guns. Just locking him up for a year or two isn’t going to do anything for his mental illness.

  26. He’s going down for life now . He really did it this time. Lets thank all they child molesters and drug dealers who molested him growing up and fed him drugs while the blacks in Seattle beat him up every day and the white gangsters he was never good enough for the whites or the blacks or the Muslims. he was raised an atheist. Thank y’all I hate Washington state!

  29. Oh and all you nasty capital hill Seattle freaks your the ones covering up what you’ve done by picking on the street trash. They weren’t street trash when you were up their butts now were they? Recognize the real problem.

  30. uhh one sided people make me so mad. their is nothing wrong with telling the whole truth whats bad will be bad and whats understandable needs to be recognized too. 🙂 I hate to see everyone hurt so much!
    If the problems taken’ care of then whats the problem now?

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