(STORY IMAGE:KHQ.COM)
SPOKANE, Wash. -A man with disabilities is speaking out after someone yelled and threw things at his car wanting to put an end to the hate.
Dan Hurlbut saw KHQ’s story about a woman who was hit in the head with a full can of soda by a total stranger. She told KHQ that stranger also yelled she should’ve been strangled at birth, likely because she was in a wheelchair. Dan was reminded of a similar incident that happened to him about a month ago as he was leaving the Walmart Parking lot.
Dan was parked in a handicapped spot, and his placard was still on his car as he was backing out.
“A pickup had came in from the far end and they were driving shall we say unsafe and that's what caught my attention,” he says.
Dan saw the two park, get out of the car, and start walking in his direction. And then, he says they started yelling at him.
“Started yelling things at me for being disabled,” he says. “I couldn't understand them. I heard something about ‘live’ but I couldn't understand what they said around it and then they started throwing things at me.”
One of the items hit his hood and he drove off. Dan did try to get the plates of the truck, but the two men ran back to their car and took off too fast.
Dan has an autoimmune disease.
“You have good days and bad days. People won't see you on bad days because you won't go out. You’re too sick to go out,” he says.
And he says seeing someone treat people this way is disheartening, so he hopes that people will report acts like this. He also has a message to whoever did this.
“Don’t be so judgmental. It's just nasty. We have a hard enough time getting through life without you people making it rougher,” he says.
Dan says it was an older grey-toned truck that the two men were driving. If you have any information, or if this has happened to you, report it to Crime Check 509-456-2233.