A Seattle woman will need surgery for a gnarly wound, after a stranger, who called her “an inferior race”, took a bite of flesh from her forehead in a surprise attack.

The incident occurred in broad daylight on 18 September when Diana Gonzalez, 36, was walking to a local convenience store and the alleged assailant, identified by prosecutors as Kamilia Chadli, threw a food wrapper at her, the victim told Seattle police.

After Gonzalez asked the woman why she had done that, Chadli allegedly yelled: “You’re the inferior race,” as well as using a homophobic slur, before spitting on Gonzalez and dragging her to ground. The suspect then sank her teeth into Gonzalez’s forehead and gnawed out a 1in-diameter chunk of flesh.

Officers who responded to the scene said they found a piece of the victim’s flesh the suspect spat into a grate.

“It looks like a zombie bite in a movie that you would see – like it’s a full circle,” Gonzalez told KOMO-TV, a Seattle ABC affiliate, wearing a bandage on her forehead. “This is my face. I’m going to have a scar permanently.”

Gonzalez said she learned from a police report that the woman was unhoused.

KOMO-TV reported that court documents indicate Chadli was living in a shelter across the street from the crime scene, and police reports from her prior encounters with officers described her as having a “history of mental health and substance abuse issues”.

Gonzalez noted that she and Chadli, who is the same age, share a similar complexion and both have curly hair. “I was like: ‘Do you think I’m white? Do you think I’m Black?’ She’s like: ‘I don’t care’,” Gonzalez said, adding the woman repeated her racist remarks.

Chadli allegedly fled the scene, but was chased by a witness, who flagged down a marshal at a nearby courthouse.

Chadli has been charged with second-degree assault, which is a felony, and is detained with bail set at $150,000. Her arraignment has been scheduled for Monday. A hate crime investigation is also under way, jail records show.

“Though a hate crime is not charged now, that charge may still be added later in the case if the evidence can meet the burden required by state law – which is often higher than what people understandably think the proof burden is,” the King county prosecutor’s office said in a statement to Seattle’s CBS affiliate, KIRO 7 News.