Unlicensed driver slashes victim in face with meat cleaver over refusal to loan him car

SEATTLE — A man slashed a person in the face with a meat cleaver after the victim declined to loan him their car on Sunday, according to Seattle police.

Police said both the suspect and the victim lived in a boarding house in the area of the Seattle Police Department’s South Precinct.

The suspect asked to borrow the victim’s car, but the victim declined because the man did not have a valid driver’s license.

The man then barricaded himself in the boarding house’s basement. He may have also been armed with a gun, police said.

A while later, the man entered the victim’s room and slashed the right side of the victim’s face with a stainless-steel meat cleaver, causing “potentially permanent disfigurement and profuse bleeding.”

SWAT officers arrived and took over negotiations. After obtaining a search warrant, officers searched the home for weapons and took the man into custody.

He was booked into King County Jail on first-degree assault.