Hussein Hassan, the 46-year-old Muslim refugee from Somalia who was shot dead by police while attacking and trying to behead a uniformed officer Sunday in Kennewick, Washington, had assaulted another cop less than a year before.
Hassan bit Kennewick Officer James Canada during a car prowling investigation last October, the Tri-City Herald reports.
Canada and another officer were called to Hassan’s home on West Sixth Avenue in Kennewick. A struggle ensued as they tried to arrest him, and Hassan bit Canada’s thumb, according to reports, causing it to bleed.
Hassan, 46, was charged with assault, resisting arrest and obstruction. He was released on $1,000 bond.
Hassan never showed up for a court-ordered mental health evaluation on April 27, and a bench warrant was issued for his arrest after he missed his May 3 hearing in Benton County Superior Court.
In 2013, Hassan also filed a discrimination lawsuit against his employer, ConAgra Lamb Weston, where he worked in the meat-packing industry. Hassan sought $5,000 from ConAgra, claiming he was wrongly terminated after he fell into a freezer and allegedly hurt his back. He claimed discrimination and workplace harassment because he is Muslim.
Kennewick is part of the Tri-Cities area, which also includes Richland and Pasco. Since the 9/11 terrorist attacks, the federal government, working with the United Nations, has pumped more than 1,000 refugees into the Tri-Cities area from jihadist-infested countries such as Somalia, Afghanistan, Iraq, Sudan, Bosnia and Uzbekistan. These refugees are hand-selected by the United Nations high commissioner for refugees and resettled in the United States by nine primary government contractors.
The federal contractor that resettles refugees in the Kennewick-Richland-Pasco area is World Relief Tri-Cities, an arm of the National Association of Evangelicals which urges donors to "stand with the vulnerable" on its website. The U.S. government pays World Relief more than $2,000 for every refugee it resettles in America.
It is likely that World Relief resettled Hassan into the Kennewick community sometime within the last five years, but calls to the agency's office were not immediately returned on Wednesday.
From U.N. refugee camp to small-town America
Hassan, meanwhile, has been confirmed by one of his former "students" to be a Muslim refugee from Somalia.
The Benton County Sheriff's Office has refused to release a photo of the refugee.
But Farah Mohamed, a former student of Hassan's at the Dadaab Refugee Camp in Kenya near the border with Somalia, said Hassan was his "role model" and never should have been killed by police.
"I'm heartbroken," Mohamed told KEPR TV. “Even when he had the mental health issues, he never, as far as I know, he never fought with anybody."
According to Mohamed, Hassan was a refugee from Somalia who taught students at the Unity Primary School in the Dagahaley portion of the Dadaab camp.
Now a University of Washington graduate with master's degrees in public health and social work, Mohamed told the news outlet that Hassan provided a "strong foundation" for his education.
“It's something that nobody would wish for anybody, let alone somebody who was your role model, who was your teacher.”
Hassan died at Trios Hospital on Sunday after he was shot by two police officers as he was attacking one of them with a sword, opening a gaping wound in the officer's head that required 17 staples to close.
But Mohamed said the officers shouldn't have shot Hassan, who had been treated for mental health issues after the first time he attacked an officer.
"If he attacked, they can be neutralizing that in many ways, but he should not be killed," Mohamed told the local television station.
There has been no such outrage expressed by the Somali community, or the resettlement industry, in the wake of the Somali police officer Mohamed Noor shooting and killing an unarmed Minneapolis woman in her pajamas, Justine Damond. Her killer continues to walk free, with no criminal charges filed against him.
Police said Hassan continued to attack the officer despite repeated commands to drop the sword.
Farah Mohamed said he and several other former students plan to travel to Kennewick to meet with Hassan's family and provide emotional support.
A pattern of failing to appear in court
Hassan is not the first Somali refugee to attack an American and then fail to show up for court or for mental evaluations.
A Somali woman, Aesha Ibrahim, who attacked the Dami Arno and her 17-year-old daughter with the Georgia family's own American flag last year, received a mental evaluation and then was released on bond. But the alleged assailant jumped bond and failed to show up for court in April. She remains unaccounted for, as WND previously reported.
Another Somali refugee, Abdirhman Ahmed Noor, disappeared after he was arrested and released on bond for two charges of attempted murder in Aberdeen, South Dakota.