SPOKANE, Wash. – The owner of Zanies was threatened with swords in the Emerson Garfield neighborhood Monday morning.
According to the Spokane Police Department, a man was wielding swords while making verbal threats toward the business owner, Robert Salib.
Salib allowed NonStop Local to view security footage that shows the man, who Salib said is named “Kevin,” wielding the swords.
Salib said “Kevin” lives in the neighborhood and had been attempting to use samurai swords to cut up a tree in front of Zanies for two days.
He told NonStop Local that his use of one sword scared off multiple customers Sunday.
“The police didn’t show up yesterday when my employee called the police department. So, I came in this morning and checked out the damage…of what he did. And he was just chopping on the tree… So then I came back into the store and I had some… messages on my message machine. And it was customers calling to tell me they weren’t able to come into the store yesterday, because they were scared of the gentleman,” Salib said.
Again on Monday, Salib said “Kevin” scared away more customers when he returned to chop the tree with two swords.
Salib confronted him to say he could not be wielding swords in front of the store.
“So, I had just walked down and around my side of the building to make sure that he was just going to get back to his apartment. He saw me through the fence. He had his samurai swords in his hands, says ‘I’m going to kill you’,” Salib said. “And my employee rushed into the building and I rushed in right after her. And I locked the door… I didn’t realize until I watched the video how close he was to me. Almost got my head chopped off.”
Police arrested the man at around 11 a.m. and Salib was not hurt.
“I’ve known ‘Kevin’ for a long period of time… It’s only been in the last couple weeks that he’s had these problems. There’s been many issues with ‘Kevin’ for the last two weeks. He’s come up on my porch smoking marijuana [and] scaring my customers away… One incident after another,” Salib said.
According to the Spokane Police Department’s Sept. 16 preliminary citywide crime report, non-domestic violence related aggravated assault is down by 8.31% in Spokane compared to last year.
