Police: Man lunged at Applebee’s employee with cleaver after being asked to leave over vaccination proof

Police have apprehended a man who allegedly lunged at an Applebee’s employee with a meat cleaver after he was asked to provide proof of vaccination.

Detectives said that Michael Dousa, 58, began yelling and swinging the cleaver around while he was outside of the restaurant in Bellevue, Wash., after failing to show proof of vaccination, according to local Seattle news outlet KOMO News. He then allegedly raised the cleaver over his head as if to attack an Applebee’s bartender who had asked him to leave, but the employee closed the door on Dousa before he was struck, police said, according to the outlet.

Dousa has been charged with felony assault, KOMO News reported.

“I don’t think violence is ever the answer,” Levi Hudson, who was at the Applebee’s during the incident, told KOMO News. “I don’t think you should be violent because I think that is one of the most ridiculous things you can do. You’re not helping people by being violent.”

“We’ve had family who has gotten sick and who has died from COVID,” Angela Hudson, Levi’s sibling, said, the outlet reported. “It’s kind of frustrating to see people just come in and not wear a mask and be violent.”

Prosecutors said that they have noticed a recent trend in people reacting violently to COVID-19 protocols, according to KOMO News, noting that just a few weeks earlier a woman had pulled a gun on a clerk after she was forced out of a gas station for refusing to wear a mask.

“Maybe it’s because are so close to being at the end of the pandemic or they’re getting so frustrated and we’re not done, but either way when you pull a meat cleaver on somebody, when you pull a gun at a gas station and we can prove that case, you’re going to get charged for it,” said Casey McNerthney, the director of communications for the King County Prosecutor’s Office, according to KOMO News.

Dousa is being held at King County jail on $75,000 bail, the outlet said.