Dallas salon shooting may be linked to wider attacks on Asians
>>SAN ANTONIO: The shooting of three women of Korean descent at a Dallas hair salon appeared to be part of a pattern of shootings at Asian businesses around the North Texas city, the chief of police said on Friday, citing the presence of a similar burgundy minivan at the scene of two other shootings.
The discovery altered the course of the investigation into the shooting, which took place on Wednesday afternoon. Investigators had not initially believed that the salon shooting was a hate crime and the chief of police, Eddie Garcia, said earlier in the week that nothing indicated such a motive.
“At that time in the investigation we did not have any indication that this crime was hate-motivated,” Chief Garcia told reporters on Friday. “As of this afternoon, that has changed. There may be a link to hate.”
The emergence of a possible connection between the salon shooting and gunfire at other businesses that cater to the region’s growing Asian population has prompted detectives to consider whether they are dealing with a series of targeted attacks. The chief said reports of what appeared to be a similar vehicle suggested a possible connection between the latest incident and two other shootings in recent weeks where a gunman appeared to be targeting Asian-run establishments.
The salon shooting had already rattled the close-knit Asian American community in Dallas. It came amid a national rise of violence against Asian Americans and evoked the shooting rampage last year at a string of spas in the Atlanta area that left eight people dead, most of them women of Asian heritage.
On Wednesday afternoon, a man walked onto Hair World Salon in an Asian immigrant enclave in North Dallas, uttered a few words and opened fire, seemingly unprovoked.
A month earlier, on April 2, a gunman opened fire from a car at Asian-run businesses along the same block, Chief Garcia said. There were no injuries reported. Witnesses described the car as a red minivan.
On Tuesday, a day before the salon shooting, a “burgundy car or minivan” was spotted leaving the scene of another incident in which shots were fired but no one was injured.