SEATTLE — A man was arrested for trying to throw a stranger off the Madison Street overpass onto I-5.
According to court documents, Jonathan James Wilson is charged with attempted assault for grabbing a woman he'd never met and trying to throw her off the 40-foot overpass.
The incident happened just before 9 a.m. on March 11, as the woman walked to work along Madison, according to police.
As she passed Wilson on foot, police say he shoved her into the bridge railing and then grabbed her by her backpack and attempted to push her over the railing on I-5
The victim held onto the railing with both hands, as Wilson tried to throw her over the edge he said, "Do you want to go over the edge?" according to the police report. Traffic on I-5 rushed by about 40 feet below.
A witness saw what was happening and pulled Wilson away from the victim. The victim told police would have been thrown off the overpass if the witness hadn't intervened. She is of slight stature, Wilson is 6 feet 3 inches, and weighs approximately 270 pounds, police wrote.
A deputy prosecutor from the King Cuonty Prosecuting Attorney's Office says this is the latest in a series of unprovoked attacks by Wilson. Wilson, who prosecutors say suffers from mental illness, had already been arrested three times since September 2018 for assaulting total strangers, all of those cases were handled by Seattle Municipal Court.
The Seattle Municipal Court judge made the decision to dismiss all of the assault charges stemming from these recent arrests. A spokesperson for the city attorney’s office says in both cases the judge "Dismissed without prejudice dismissed by reason of incompetency" after Wilson got his mental health competency evaluation.
Wilson, who is homeless, according to the police report, is now locked in the King County Jail; bail is set at $400,000.
He's set to be arraigned on the charge on March 27.
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