Woman Charged In South Bay Anti-Asian Hate Crime

MOUNTAIN VIEW, CA — A Marin County woman was charged with a hate crime on Monday after authorities said she spat on a stranger of Asian descent in downtown Mountain View, used an ethnic slur and told him to go back to “where you came from.”

According to the Santa Clara County District Attorney, the 36-year-old victim was eating lunch outside with a friend near Castro and Villa streets on Feb. 13 when they were approached by Karen Marie Inman, who spat on him unprovoked.

Inman, a 39-year-old resident of Greenbrae, is charged with a misdemeanor hate crime as well as battery, and faces possible jail time if convicted. She is scheduled to be arraigned on Monday afternoon in San Jose.

“Our community stands together against any hatred and racism against the Asian Pacific Islander community,” District Attorney Jeff Rosen said in a news release. “It is ignorant. It is wrong. And when it is criminal — those who are charged will face the full power of my Office to hold them accountable.”

Another diner who witnessed the incident and had seen Inman approach other people of Asian descent in the area but “did not know how she spoke with them," notified the police, according to the district attorney’s office.

In a separate incident, Inman was arrested by Mountain View police on Friday after an attempted theft at a Smart and Final on El Camino Real, according to a news release by the police department. There was no indication that Inman made comments related to ethnicity during the Mar. 5 incident, according to police.

“This case is both disheartening and disturbing. Mountain View is a vibrant community in many ways thanks to the diversity that exists here,” said Mountain View Police Chief Chris Hsiung. “Hate crimes have not and will not be tolerated in Mountain View and as this case demonstrates, we take these crimes seriously and will investigate them to the fullest extent.”

Since the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic, there has been a rise in hate crimes targeting Asians, including several documented attacks against Asian elders in the Bay Area in recent weeks. The Stop AAPI Hate organization reported over 2,800 incidents of anti-Asian hate in the country since the pandemic began, with over half occurring in California.

Last month, the NBA player and former Palo Alto High School basketball star Jeremy Lin detailed on social media how he had been called "coronavirus" during a game.