Sword-Wielding Man Is Arraigned

SEATTLE - A man who held downtown police at bay with a sword for 11 hours last spring was arraigned yesterday on charges carrying combined maximum penalties of more than three years in jail.

A municipal judge also ordered Anthony Allison, 41, returned to Western State Hospital for competency and sanity evaluations pending a pretrial hearing Aug. 26.

Allison is charged with unlawful use of a weapon to intimidate, unlawful possession of a deadly weapon other than a firearm and obstructing a police officer. Each of those charges is punishable by up to a year in jail and a $5,000 fine. He also is charged with resisting arrest, which carries a maximum penalty of 90 days in jail and a $1,000 fine.

Allison was released from Western State last year. He was there for 10 years after being acquitted by reason of insanity in 1986 on a charge of second-degree assault with intent to commit rape.

The 11-hour downtown standoff began shortly before lunch hour April 13, when he began threatening people with a 3-foot samurai-style sword. A block was evacuated and transit buses were deployed to provide a barrier between him and hundreds of onlookers who gathered as he was sprayed with a fire hose, and dazed by bright lights.

Wearing military fatigues and sunglasses, Allison stood firm until he was knocked down with blasts of water from fire hoses. Officers used a ladder to pin him against a wall and then wrested the sword from him.