Woman charged with hate crime against Muslims

A Burien woman has been charged with two counts of malicious harassment, the state's hate crime statute, after she allegedly yelled racial slurs and assaulted two Muslim women.

Jennifer Leigh Jennings, also known as Jennifer Leigh Adams, was charged Thursday in King County Superior Court on what happened to be her 37th birthday. Her arraignment, in which she is expected to enter a plea, is scheduled for Nov. 2.

The incident happened about 6 p.m. Saturday at an AM/PM gas station at 15252 Tukwila International Blvd. The two women -- both U.S. citizens -- were trying to pump gas into their car.

"Jennings was watching and said, 'Suicide Bomber,' and 'Hey you don't know how to pump go back to your country,'" Detective David Heckelsmiller wrote in a probable cause document.

Jennings slammed the car door on one of the woman's legs and pushed the other woman, according to police. She also allegedly kicked the first woman when she got out of the vehicle.

A Tukwila police detective viewed a recording made by a AM/PM surveillance camera and investigators are waiting for a copy to be made for the case, police spokesman Mike Murphy said Thursday.

On her way to the Tukwila police holding facility, Jennings told an officer, "Ya, I shouldn't have called them sand (expletives) or other stuff like that," according to the probable cause document.

At the holding facility, Jennings continued to be upset, telling an officer with a dark complexion, "You're only doing this because he's the same race and religion as those two ladies."

Jennings, whose criminal history includes a fourth-degree assault conviction and four convictions in the 1990s for exposing herself or illegal touching, has been released on bail.

Arsalan Bukhari, executive director of the Washington chapter of the Council on American-Islamic Relations, said he believes the incident is a symptom of the anti-Muslim hysteria being stirred up in mainstream media.

"I hope we can stand up against that kind of fear promotion that can lead to this stuff," he said. "We fear that this may just be one of the many incidents that may be happening, and people are suffering in silence."