A downtown bar manager is recovering after a vicious assault that occurred last Tuesday. He said it all started when he tried to remove two customers after they were spewing racial slurs.
"Right away, when they came in, they were dropping the N word," victim Jade Cardwell said. "We have a black bar tender we just employed. We weren't having it. We wanted them gone."
Cardwell said when he told them to leave, he was then the target of their derogatory, hateful words.
"I have a man bun, he smacked my man bun," victim Jade Cardwell said. "He wanted to challenge me outside. Normally when that happens, we allowed them to go outside and then try to shut the door behind them."
But this time, the two suspects pulled Cardwell by the shirt outside with them. He said as the manager of Borracho's that night, he was just trying to get them out without any future insults or problems.
"One of them ripped my hair out, ripped my shirt," he said. "It escalated over toward their car."
Cardwell said that's when one of the men pulled out a knife. He was also hit so hard in the face, his nose was broken. He said another one of his employees was hit too.
"I'm going in for surgery today," he said. "They have to put my naval cavity back together."
Spokane Police did come to the scene, but did not catch the suspects. Cardwell said they fled in a charcoal colored dodge pickup with Idaho plates, possibly out of Shoshone County. He is also giving officers pictures of the suspects from their security cameras.
He said the worst part of the experience was knowing there is hate like that in our community.
"It's the language they used that really bothers me," he said.
(story: Hayley Guenthner, KHQ Local News Anchor & Reporter; photo: Jade Cardwell)