(Photo courtesy of Lafayette Elementary)

D.C. police Thursday have arrested a Maryland man and charged him with yelling threats and racist slurs at a crossing guard near Lafayette Elementary School in Northeast on Monday afternoon.

The crossing guard had stopped the man in his vehicle at around 3:25 p.m., when the man began yelling out his car window, berating the crossing guard—who is Latino—for being an immigrant, saying that he “used to shoot people like him at the border,” and that the crossing guard “did not belong working in this area around white kids,” according to the police report. The man also threatened to shoot and run the man over several times. At one point he sped off and then did a U-turn to come back and issue more threats.

On Thursday, police arrested 55-year-old Lionel Kevin Hyater of Bethesda, Maryland in connection with the incident. He was charged with felony threats and stalking.

WTOP reports that Hyater has been arrested several times for violent crimes and had been named in four restraining orders in Maryland, including a domestic violence complaint, in the last decade. A post on a Facebook account that shares Hyater’s name says that the crossing guard “is illegal,” and that he made his comments because the children need a “real traffic crossing guard.”

In a release, the Metropolitan Police Department said they are investigating Monday’s incident as a hate crime (MPD notes that “a designation as a hate crime by MPD does not mean that prosecutors will prosecute it as a hate crime”). There have been 101 reported hate crimes this year, up from 86 at this time last year.

There also was controversy over a 911 operator’s failure to correctly respond to the call about the incident. A parent called 911 to report Hyater’s “erratic” behavior and his threats to shoot the crossing guard at around 3:28 p.m. on Monday, but the call sat in the queue for about 27 minutes with no response, Wanda Gattison, a spokesperson for the city’s emergency dispatch line, told DCist earlier this week. The call was misclassified as a lower priority by the dispatcher, and the incident is currently being investigated, Gattison said.

Previously:
‘I Used To Shoot People Like You At The Border:’ Man Reportedly Threatens School Crossing Guard