Police: Knife-wielding woman throws coffee on Starbucks worker
SEATTLE - A woman was arrested Friday afternoon in downtown Seattle after she threw a cup of coffee on a Starbucks employee and pulled a kitchen knife on officers.
The incident began at around noon, when the woman was inside the Starbucks outlet at 5th Avenue and Pine Street. She threw a cup of coffee on one of the employees there, then ran out of the store and down the street, said Jonah Spangenthal-Lee of the Seattle police.
A security guard chased after the suspect and called police, who located the woman near 7th Avenue and Stewart Street.
When officers approached the woman, she pulled out a large kitchen knife and brandished it.
Police got the knife away from the woman, then discovered she had a small knife wound to her abdomen that appeared to be self-inflicted.
She was taken into custody, then wheeled to a waiting ambulance on a gurney.
The Starbucks employee who was hit by the coffee was not seriously hurt.
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This is a developing news story. More information will be posted as it becomes available.
The incident began at around noon, when the woman was inside the Starbucks outlet at 5th Avenue and Pine Street. She threw a cup of coffee on one of the employees there, then ran out of the store and down the street, said Jonah Spangenthal-Lee of the Seattle police.
A security guard chased after the suspect and called police, who located the woman near 7th Avenue and Stewart Street.
When officers approached the woman, she pulled out a large kitchen knife and brandished it.
Police got the knife away from the woman, then discovered she had a small knife wound to her abdomen that appeared to be self-inflicted.
She was taken into custody, then wheeled to a waiting ambulance on a gurney.
The Starbucks employee who was hit by the coffee was not seriously hurt.
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This is a developing news story. More information will be posted as it becomes available.
Nutty cops.... and the lady is a loon too. Â
 @Andrew Bush You pass up any chance to badmouth cops do you? What in this article even remotely suggested that the cops were nutty?
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 @fury us And why would you think race is a relevant data to collect? Not a racist, really?
A real problem with treating some of the mentally ill is getting them to take their medication. When they are on their meds they're fine but miss a dose or two and all bets are off. Plus, you can only do an involuntary commitment for 72 hours unless the person is a "immediate" threat to themselves or others. Sad.
OK - I'm seeing a lot of comments regarding not having the resources to handle the mentally ill. How about just cutting to the chase by rounding them up, getting them off the damn public streets so us sane people can live our lives without fear of having a hot cup of coffee thrown in our face, or a hatchet buried in our head!!!Â
HELLO - P-U-B-L-I-CÂ Â S-A-F-E-T-Y
 @Throbbinhood Your right, what is your address. We will start with you.
 @moosedrool LOL...
Actually, having 16oz of hot coffee thrown at you is brutal. I worked at an Sbux in the 80s when some crazy dude did this to me. 16oz right at my chest from about 18 inches away. It burned me so bad I had to go to the hospital and needed topical antibiotics for the weeping and open blisters. It's really no joke. There was no reason for him to throw it at me, all I said was "here you are, that will be a $1.64" (coffee was a lot cheaper in 1988 haha) Some people are just mentally ill, and it's virtually impossible to get them help, and it IS impossible to get them help if they don't want it.
If it had been a man he would have been shot dead. Â
I wonder if the rolled out the Hazmat unit for the spilled Starbucks coffee?
No - only for the "Starbucks Slasher" herself.
Maybe the lady woke up this morning and found her husband and her brother "together" in the guest bedroom and then went to Starbucks and got the wrong coffee. That was the straw that broke the camels back. HAHAHA RIGHT, give her medication and make them super strong Doctor.
NUTJOB!
In addition to the gangs, it's truly frightening the degree of mental illness that has infiltrated the downtown corridor. In my 50 years on this earth, I can safely say my last visit to downtown Seattle is well behind me.Â
Not scared of much, but I felt very OUTNUMBERED.
Too many freaks and crazies for me.
My $$ is going elsewhere.
We are now paying the price for budget cuts to mental health. Many of these kinds of incidents are caused by people who need psychiatric care but can't get it. They now roam the streets.
 @mstipton This is the problem, why do we need to spend more money on them? I live in Japan and there are plenty of mentally ill people but you almost never see anything like this in Japan. I can say that the US has so many issues and it starts with the crappy parenting when people are young. We bred crappy adults like rabbits in the US and so this is the behavior we reap.
 @Terry Molina I plan on it the US is broken thanks to people like you. If you cannot see that the US has many issues you are blind. The main issue is the lack of morals from the parents they teach their kids crappy values. Do you not wonder why most of the world thinks Americans are idiots? We are mostly hated overseas because of news stories like this. We have a massive drug problem in the US and we sweep it under the table. Or we say lets legalize it. There is almost no drugs in Japan because parents teach their kids properly.
 @tandras Please stay in Japan.
 @mstipton The mentally ill among us do not simply go away because the funding has disappeared. They are out on the streets now and considering the large number of our military who are coming home in need of help it's safe to assume that things are only going to get worse.Â
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We have a choice; either fork over the taxes needed to provide adequate treatment for these people or be prepared to run into them in our everyday lives. Society is going to pay the price either way.
It concerns me she had a large kitchen knife and wasn't shot. Â This time it turned out to be a happy ending, but what if an officer was stabbed and killed? Â I hope this was due to the officers seeing a better resolution, and not because they are trying to avoid making the news due to another shooting. Â More shootings is usually a case of the criminals becoming more crazy, not because the police force is out of control.Â
Maybe she was just whittling
Pulled a large kitchen knife huh......she's lucky she didn't get ventilated. Don't know the circumstances but within 20 feet and pulling a knife on me? I'm not going to try to talk you down......you'll learn really quick not to bring a knife to a gunfight. Guess the officers felt she wasn't really much of a threat.
Where is Andrew Bush? I'm sure somehow he will be able to spin this as all the police officers fault even though they apparently disarmed the woman and took her into custody without incident.
 @Surveyor1 Look above...lol...
 @Surveyor1 Possible the woman was without any mental-health care due to budget cuts etc. (just a thought)
 @Surveyor1 I think maybe the real story was the price of Starbucks coffee... In addition the restraint of the officer was commendable. I also think picking on Andrew for observing police corruption was a childish remark.
@Funky-Munky It might have been childish if he didn't treat everyone who disagrees with his position like they were imbeciles.
 @Surveyor1 He's a radical and constantly attacks my Christianity in addition, but I realize sometimes it's okay to look past someones faults. Sometimes there's a person who's hurting, angry and possibly just fed up with so many different things it overwhelms them. sorry. I am guilty of superiority complex sometimes too.
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 @thatsjarrod What the hell are you talking about? Take your stupid assumptions somewhere else.Â
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Lot's of knife stories lately.Â
 @Komo Dragon I was thinking the price of Starbucks coffee can drive some to absolute madness. Horrible for the lady who had coffee thrown on her. :(
 @Funky-Munky LOL, got that right...
You can usually tell the crazy people...when they walk by you talking to 'the air,' you pretty much know who the wackadoos to avoid are.
 @dgruntled Or maybe they are using a bluetooth device.
Pulling a large knife on SPD...she's lucky to be alive.Â
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Every time I am in the shopping district downtown, there is at least one nut job running around screaming at people and causing problems.Â
@caphillkid Well if you'd quit screaming at people then there wouldn't be any problems in the shopping district downtown.
 @DDG I only scream over the other people screaming so I can be heard. :)
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Now I hate to make assumptions, but do stories like this (as well as just walking around downtown Seattle) make anyone else question why we have our treatment and rehab "halfway homes" in the middle of our downtown district?Â
 @AesopsTables Imagine if they didn't.... similar to all the cutbacks in mental-health.....
 @Funky-Munky  You misunderstand. My grief isn't with having these facilities. It is with having these facilities in the middle of our downtown. Seems like the worst place to have them. The cost of the buildings is going to be higher, the prevalence of crime is always higher in a large city (meaning these recovering addicts are much more likely to run into supplies of drugs being sold) and we are a tourist destination, but we have surrounded many of our land-marks with rehab centers and halfway homes.
 @AesopsTables The "treatment facilities" should be put out in middle of nowhere and be called "farms".
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Get these nuts off the streets and give them something constructive to do. If they are unable to at least do the most basic labor tasks then they should be involuntarily committed. There's NO REASON we, the general working public, should have to put up with the crazies allowed to roam among us!
 @AesopsTables Oh, very good thoughts... thumbs up! :D)