Latinos in the state of Washington have had a rough couple weeks. Near Seattle, a man was assaulted by a drunk man who is suspected to have attacked the first man due to his ethnicity. Just a few days earlier, a family in a car in Union Gap, WA was attacked by a transient who said he was angry because they did not stop to pick him up.
Saturday, Peter M. Weller, 30, threw a can of beer at a Hispanic family as they passed him on their way into a restaurant parking lot. He later told police that he believed the car was going to stop to give him a ride, and he grew angry when it did not.
He chased them into a parking lot and pounded on the driver’s side window until it broke. Through the broken window, Weller bit the father.
Weller was arrested for malicious harassment, and told police he hated Mexicans and accused the father of being in the Mexican Mafia.
The week prior, Kurt Randall Madsen, went after a Latino man in what is suspected of being a racially motivated attack.
Madsen, 42, was drinking with a Latino man outside an Applebee’s restaurant where they both worked when an argument began. Madsen started spouting racial slurs when another coworker came out and separated them.
Madsen was told he was too drunk to go inside and was told to go home. He then confronted the Latino man again and accused him of being an “illegal immigrant”, then punched him in the face until he fell. He then straddled the fallen man and slammed his head into some rocks, according to reports.
