The sheriff’s officer in Georgia, who said the man accused of killing six Asian women and two others during a shooting at spas in the Atlanta area, had a bad day earlier, had a photo taken earlier. of racist T-shirts shared on social media.
In a Facebook post from April 2020, Sheriff’s captain Jay Baker shared an image of T-shirts based on the Corona beer label that reads, “Covid 19 IMPORTED VIRUS FROM CHY-NA.”
“Love my shirt,” Baker wrote. “Get yours while they last.”
Baker did not immediately respond to a request for comment, but after BuzzFeed News asked about the shirt, the public Facebook post became unavailable.
At their press conference on the shooting on Wednesday, police said it was too early to determine whether the suspect was motivated by race, but added that the suspect told officials he had problems with sex addiction and targeted the businesses because he ‘temptation. ”
As director of communications and community relations at the sheriff, Baker was one of the speakers of law enforcement who gave an update on the investigation.
In a report with reporters on the suspect’s statement for the shooting, which he allegedly admitted, Baker said it was a very bad day for the shooter.
His comments and officials’ decision to focus on the story of the suspect amid a spate of escalating hate incidents against Asian Americans has been widely criticized.
A report published Tuesday by the organization Stop AAPI Hate found that nearly 3,800 reported hate incidents have targeted Asian Americans in the past year, in part because of racist scapegoat over COVID-19. During the pandemic, former President Donald Trump repeatedly called the disease the ‘China virus’ and ‘Kung flu’.
Of the incidents documented by the group, 68% were verbal harassment and 11% physical assault. The report also showed that women reported more than twice as many attacks.