Santa Clara County Police Chiefs Condemn Recent Anti-Asian Crimes

SANTA CLARA COUNTY, CA — Police chiefs across Santa Clara County condemned recent anti-Asian hate crimes in a statement on Wednesday.

The statement, signed by every police chief in the county, was released the day after a gunman killed eight people in three spas in a rampage in Atlanta. Six of the deceased were women of Asian descent, escalating fears over a rise in hate crimes against the Asian American Pacific Islander community.

“As law enforcement leaders in Santa Clara County, we are committed to protecting you and doing everything we can to prevent these abhorrent criminal acts,” the statement read. “We are committed to holding those accountable for inflicting pain and fears in our communities.”

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 has reported over 3,700 incidents of anti-Asian hate in the country since the pandemic began.

Last week, the Santa Clara District Attorney’s office announced it was prosecuting two separate hate crime incidents that occured in the county. On Mar. 8, a Marin County woman was charged in connection with a hate crime in Mountain View, when authorities said she spat on a stranger of Asian descent, uttered an ethnic slur and told her to go back to "where you come from."

On Mar. 12, Rosen’s office announced charges against a San Francisco man after an Asian woman was sexually assaulted as she was waiting for her train at the San Jose Diridon Caltrain Station. The 26-year-old victim was grabbed by the neck, tossed to the ground and dragged while the suspect repeatedly said anti-Asian slurs, according to the district attorney.

“We, as law enforcement leaders in Santa Clara County, stand united in our commitment to protecting our #AAPI communities against hate,” Mountain View Police Chief Chris Hsuing said Wednesday in a tweet.

In the statement, the police chiefs preached unity and asked for the public’s assistance in putting an end to the attacks.

“An attack against the AAPI community is an attack on all of us,” they said.