King County prosecutors charged a 42-year-old man with a hate crime after police say he repeatedly called two people an anti-Black racial slur and attacked one in Seattle’s First Hill neighborhood on Tuesday.
The woman he allegedly attacked had a knee laceration and swelling to her head and face. She declined ambulance transportation to a hospital, according to a police report filed in King County Superior Court on Friday.
John David French is in custody at the King County Jail on $20,000 bail and is expected to enter a plea at his arraignment on March 13, said Casey McNerthney, a spokesperson for the King County Prosecuting Attorney’s Office.
A man called 911 to report seeing French, who is white, attacking a woman outside an apartment building at Hubbell Place and Ninth Avenue shortly after 8 p.m. Tuesday, according to the police report.
The man told police he was standing with the woman when “they encountered” French, who repeatedly yelled a slur at them. The woman told police French then leapt over a railing and ran at her, knocking her to the ground, then punched and kicked her while she was down. The man who called 911 also told police he saw French “charge” at the woman and punch and kick her, according to the police report.
The 911 caller said he approached French, who allegedly ran back inside his apartment through an exterior door. Officers responded and were granted a search warrant after French refused to open his apartment door, the police report states.
French eventually exited his apartment and was arrested, court records show.
French has no previous arrests or criminal convictions in Washington. He was convicted of wrongful use of a controlled substance while serving in the U.S. Army in 2003, according to the police report.
This is at least the ninth hate crime reported to Seattle police so far this year, police data shows.
Police are searching for two to three young men they believe yelled homophobic slurs and fired a water bead gun at people standing outside a queer bar in Seattle’s Capitol Hill neighborhood earlier this month.
Reported hate crimes based on race and ethnicity have steadily decreased in King County since they spiked in 2020, when police referred charges in 41 such cases to the Prosecuting Attorney’s Office. There were 31 cases in 2021, 23 in both 2022 and 2023, and 11 last year, McNerthney said.