SPOKANE, Wash. — A Spokane businessman says he came close to serious injury, or worse, when a neighbor came at him with two swords —and it was all caught on camera.
Court records show multiple witnesses saw a man chopping up a tree outside of Zanies Smoke Shop with two samurai swords Monday morning.
"Scaring my customers, to where I have customers calling me telling me they won’t shop here because somebody’s outside with two swords," said Robert Salib, the owner of Zanies.
Salib says he confronted the man about it, and that's when things took a dangerous turn.
“So he saw me peeking through the gate. That’s when he said, 'I’m gonna kill you.' He came through the gate, I backed up. I said, ‘Calm down, just calm down.’ He took his sword, swung it. But I was still about five feet away," Salib said.
That's when Salib turned and ran inside, adding he didn't realize his potential attacker was right behind him until he checked security video.
The man is now charged with second degree assault and resisting arrest. KREM 2 News is not identifying him as he is being held until he can have a mental health evaluation.
Salib says over the last two weeks the man's condition seemed to worsen to the point police were called multiple times, as he sat on the shop's steps smoking marijuana and saying things that don't make sense. He hesitated to even call the police because he knows this was a mental health crisis.
“When somebody threatens your life and I didn’t realize how close I came to losing my life with him right behind me like that," he said.
Salib says this highlights Spokane's need for some sort of behavioral health intervention or facility to deal with substance abuse, crises and other issues that sometimes end up on businesses' doorsteps.
"“There’s a lot of low income people out there who need mental help, but they can’t go to a professional down the street," he said. "We can’t help but feel sorry for him. Everybody here knows who he is, but he needs help.”
The need for more mental health resourced has long been a topic of discussion. Last month, Spokane Mayor Lisa Brown even hinted at a new partnership to create a behavioral crisis center.
A city spokesperson emailed KREM 2 back Tuesday evening to say the project is a potential expansion of Spokane County's Regional Stabilization Center, spearheaded by the county and supported by Mayor Brown.
"The City of Spokane believes the SRSC is an important resource in our community and fully supports the idea of expansion, so we wrote a letter to our federal legislators on behalf of the County expressing that support," spokesperson Erin Hut wrote.