Police to halt anti-Asian hate crimes
MORE than a dozen San Jose, California, police officers walked through the white arches of the Grand Century Mall in “Little Saigon” to reassure a Vietnamese-American community fearful over the rise in anti-Asian hate crimes in the US.
The officers walked through the arcade of hair and nail salons, restaurants serving Vietnamese cuisine, and herbal medicine shops on Saturday, talking to business owners and patrons. They then conducted a similar tour of San Jose’s Japantown, where a citizen patrol group was formed following the deadly attacks on Asian spas in the Atlanta area on March 16.
Across the US, law enforcement agencies are scrambling to better protect Asian communities amid a wave of violence targeting them since lockdowns to cope with the coronavirus pandemic began about a year ago.
A recent report by the Center for the Study of Hate and Extremism at California State University, San Bernardino, showed that while hate crimes overall in the US had fallen slightly in 2020, crimes against Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders had jumped by 145%.
A vicious assault last week in which a man kicked a 65-year-old immigrant from the Philippines in New York City multiple times was captured on video and went viral, further stoking fears about anti-Asian hate crimes.
New York City has deployed a team of undercover Asian police officers. Other major cities, from San Jose to Chicago, have boosted patrols in Asian areas and sought to forge closer ties with communities.
Paul Luu, chief executive of the
Chinese American Service League, welcomed the “revved up” police presence in Chicago’s Chinatown. His group is focused on educating the community on hate crimes and encouraging victims, many reluctant due to language barriers or wariness of the police, to come forward.
Grace Pai, director of organising at the Chicago branch of Asian Americans Advancing Justice, said she was against a larger police presence, citing distrust of law enforcement.
Pai said the police response in the Atlanta area shootings, where an officer seemed to minimise the attack by saying the shooter had “a really bad day,” was emblematic of a broader police bias. Six of the eight killed were of Asian descent. “Asian Americans have been negatively impacted by policing,” she said.