Police arrested a man in connection with three attacks on Asian Americans in Oakland’s Chinatown last month, CBS San Francisco reported.
Yahya Muslim, 28, was charged with assault, assault, abuse of the elderly and a special allegation while on bail, according to the Alameda County Sheriff’s Office. The office also said that Muslim had two previous convictions for assault.
Newly installed Oakland police chief LeRonne Armstrong announced his arrest on Monday. Muslim is accused of assaulting a 91-year-old man on January 31, recorded on video. 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 district attorney for Alameda County, said she was investigating whether the attacks were racially motivated, which could add a hate crime to Muslim charges. She also announced the creation of a special response unit aimed at crimes against Asian Americans, especially older Asians.
“It is not unique to Chinatown or the Asian community to see the increase in crime that we have seen across the city and the county, but we have seen in the past few weeks and months a very specific increase in crimes against Asians,” O’Malley said.
The new unit also comes after another similar attack in the Bay Area. An 84-year-old man from Thailand died after being attacked in San Francisco on January 28. A 19-year-old man was arrested for the man’s murder and abuse of the elderly, the San Francisco prosecutor said.
The recent wave of attacks drew national attention and prompted actors Daniel Wu and Daniel Dae Kim to donate $ 25,000 as a reward to help find the culprit. In an Instagram post showing the attack on the 91-year-old man, Wu commented on the increase in attacks against Asian Americans.
“We must do more to help literally thousands of Americans who have suffered at the hands of this absolutely senseless violence,” he said. “We must take a stand and say, ‘no more’.”
“Those of us who have been following these issues since the beginning of COVID have seen these types of incidents in our news feeds appear almost daily and yet we see very little being done about it,” Kim told Elaine Quijano of CBSN on Tuesday.
In the same interview, Wu asked the federal government to ally itself with community groups that made combating 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 finding out more about how they can help,” said Wu.
Senior CBS News correspondent Weijia Jiang asked White House press secretary Jen Psaki on Monday whether President Biden had seen the videos.
“I don’t know if he saw the videos, but he is concerned about discrimination, actions against the Asian American community, so he signed the executive order and has been frank in making it clear that attacks, verbal attacks, any attacks in any way are unacceptable, ” Psaki said.
Days after taking office, Mr. Biden signed an executive order to repudiate racism and xenophobia towards Americans of Asian origin, specifically targeting anti-Asian animus connected to the COVID-19 pandemic.
In a three-month period, more than 2,120 incidents or hate crimes were reported by Asian Americans between March and June last year, according to the Asian Pacific Policy and Planning Council and the Chinese Council for Affirmative Action. There was an increase of almost 845% compared to all cases reported in 2017, 2018 and 2019 combined. The country’s tone was exacerbated by former President Donald Trump, who referred to the virus as “Kung Flu” or “Chinese virus”.
Separately, community organizers in Oakland have established a fund to arm private security in Chinatown. As of Tuesday, he had more than $ 62,000 in donations.
Alvin Patrick and Caitlin Yilek contributed to this report.