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Man with history of targeting Black people charged with hate crime

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A man who prosecutors say has a history of targeting and threatening African Americans was charged with a hate crime, reports Seattle’s KIRO-TV.

In the most recent incident, police said Adam V. Lopez was at Harborview Medical Center and was ejected from the emergency room after trying to spit on hospital staff and calling a Black man in a wheelchair a racial slur. He also threatened to beat him, and the victim was afraid he would be assaulted, police said. Another man sprayed Lopez with pepper spray, believing the wheelchair-bound man would have been attacked if he didn’t intervene.

Court documents show Lopez, 61, has a history of arrests for malicious harassment, the state’s hate crime law. “He has a history of targeting African American people, according to documentation from the Seattle Police Department and the King County Sheriff’s Office,” prosecutors wrote. “He has previously displayed a weapon to intimidate others.”

In a 2018 case, Lopez was charged with a hate crime after police said he randomly attacked a pedestrian downtown. The victim couldn’t be located during the trial, but court documents show Lopez pleaded guilty to a weapons charge for showing a knife. He also was arrested on June 6 after police said he called an African-American man a racial slur at a bus stop. That also was resolved as an unlawful use of a weapon case, prosecutors said.

Lopez, who listed Everett as his last home address, also has a pending misdemeanor harassment case in Seattle after investigators said he targeted a Metro bus driver because of her race and gender.  “He screamed several racial epithets at her and threatened repeatedly to beat her severely,” according to court documents. Lopez’s history also includes a 2001 conviction for trespassing and a 1999 drug conviction. He remained in King County Jail on Monday morning.

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