A D.C. restaurant owner who was wanted on a hate crime charge was arrested last week after police said he swung a knife at someone during an argument.
Greg Harris, 34, was taken into custody on assault charges Monday morning after authorities said he got into a confrontation in an alley near the 1800 block of Florida Avenue NW, according to D.C. Superior Court documents.
The male victim encountered Mr. Harris around 11:35 a.m. Monday, when he drove into the alley to obtain property from another man he was talking to on the phone, according to the court filing.
Mr. Harris and the victim got into an argument, and the victim told the other man on the phone he was being verbally assaulted.
The second man came down into the alley and told police that Mr. Harris was yelling “F—- you” at him and holding a knife.
Court documents said Mr. Harris swung the knife in the general direction of the second man but was not close enough to strike him.
Metropolitan Police officers arrived soon after and arrested Mr. Harris. The court documents said officers patted down the suspect, but didn’t find a knife on him.
Mr. Harris had an active warrant for “simple assault hate bias” that was issued in October.
It’s unclear what offense the charges stemmed from, but Mr. Harris was seen in a viral video on social media berating a delivery driver at the suspect’s now-shuttered Canna Coffee Ice Cream Cafe Mocktail Bar Lounge in Adams Morgan.
“Learn English! Learn it!” Mr. Harris can be seen saying in the September video, which was recorded by the driver. “If you get money in America, learn English!”
His restaurant was shut down due to longstanding health code violations days after the video began accruing views on the internet.
Mr. Harris went on to open a food truck in November called Humans Are Crazy Cafe.
He is currently under court supervision related to the knife incident last week.
