YAKIMA, Wash.- A Yakima County man accused of threatening his Mexican-American neighbors with a knife was charged Thursday with malicious harassment, a hate crime.
The sheriff's office says Donald Dowell Gasperson was angry over a long-standing dispute with his neighbors in the town of Harrah when he went onto their property June 13 with a large knife and called them derogatory names for Mexican-Americans and American Indians.
Yakima Herald-Republic reports the 40-year-old is held on $100,000 bail.
In his report, Sgt. Mike Russell said Gasperson asked him why he wouldn't "help a white man but was willing to help the thieves across the street."
