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Police arrested a man in three attacks targeting Asian Americans in Oakland’s Chinatown last month, CBS San Francisco reported.
Yahya Muslim, 28, was charged with assault, bodily harm, elder abuse and a special allegation while on bail, according to the County Sheriff’s Office. Alameda. The office also said Muslim had already been convicted twice for criminal assault.
Newly sworn-in Oakland Police Chief LeRonne Armstrong announced the arrest Monday. Muslim faces charges for assaulting a 91-year-old man on film January 31. He is accused of assaulting two other people – a 60-year-old man and a 55-year-old woman – on the same day.
Nancy O’Malley, the Alameda County district attorney, said she was investigating whether the attacks were racist, which could add hate crime to Muslim’s charges. She also announced the creation of a special response unit focused on crimes against Asian Americans, especially older Asians.
“It’s not unique to Chinatown or the Asian community that the increase in crime we’ve seen across town and across the county, but we’ve seen over the past few weeks and months a very specific increase. of crimes against Asians, “O Malley said.
The new unit also comes after another similar attack in the Bay Area. An 84-year-old Thai man died after being attacked in San Francisco on January 28. A 19-year-old man has been arrested for the man’s murder and elder abuse, the San Francisco district attorney said.
The recent wave of attacks has garnered national attention and prompted actors Daniel Wu and Daniel Dae Kim to donate $ 25,000 as a reward helping find the culprit. In an Instagram post showing the attack on the 91-year-old, Wu commented on the rise in attacks against Asian Americans.
“We must do more to help the thousands of Americans who have suffered at the hands of this absolutely senseless violence,” he said. “We have to take a stand and say ‘no more’.”
“Those of us who have been following these issues since the onset of COVID have seen these kinds of incidents in our newsfeeds appear almost daily, and yet we see very little to be done about it,” Kim told CBSN’s Elaine Quijano Tuesday.
In the same interview, Wu called on the federal government to team up with community groups that have made tackling racism against Asian Americans a priority. “What the federal government can do further is reach out to community groups that are already in this space and have been doing this work for years and find out more about how they can help,” Wu said. .
CBS News senior White House correspondent Weijia Jiang asked White House press secretary Jen Psaki on Monday whether President Biden had seen the videos.
“I don’t know he saw the videos, but he is concerned about the discrimination against, the actions against the Asian-American community, which is why he signed the decree and why he was outspoken in making it clear that attacks, verbal attacks, any attack of any form is unacceptable “, Psaki said.
A few days after his inauguration, Mr. Biden signed an executive order to disown racism and xenophobia against Asian Americans, specifically targeting anti-Asian animosity linked to the COVID-19 pandemic.
Over a three month period, over 2,120 hate crimes or incidents reported by Asian Americans between March and June of last year, according to the Asian Pacific Policy and Planning Council and Chinese for Affirmative Action. There has been an increase of almost 845% from all reported cases in 2017, 2018 and 2019 combined. The tone of the country was exacerbated by former President Donald Trump, who called the virus “Kung flu” or “Chinese virus”.
In addition, community organizers in Oakland have created a fund to have armed private security in Chinatown. As of Tuesday, he had over $ 62,000 in donations.
Alvin Patrick and Caitlin Yilek contributed to this report.
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