The Chinese-American stepping up to take on hate crimes

Shanghai-born, Hong Kong-raised Fred Teng is part of a new panel advising the New York City Police Department

He says he hopes he can encourage prosecutors to take on cases that have been difficult to pursue in the past

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Advocacy groups say anti-Asian hate crimes have risen in the US since the start of the pandemic. Photo: AFP

Published: 11:00pm, 21 Apr 2021Updated: 8:54am, 22 Apr 2021

New Yorker Fred Teng has a simple message.

With thousands of hate crimes against Asian-Americans reported amid the coronavirus pandemic, the president of the not-for-profit America China Public Affairs Institute wants to make one thing clear.

“We just want to be equal. We don’t want to be more, we don’t want to be less. And this country belongs to us, as well as anyone else,” Teng said.

As part of that mission, Teng has joined the newly created Hate Crime Review Panel, a partnership with the New York City Police Department (NYPD) that will help police determine which cases should be investigated as hate crimes.

Fred Teng, President of America China Public Affairs Institute, is seen in 2019. Photo: Nora Tam

Teng is one of five community leaders from the city’s Asian, Black, Jewish, LGBTQ and Muslim communities who will help the force establish if a victim’s actual or perceived race, national origin, ethnicity, religion, disability or sexual orientation were motivating factors in possible hate crime.

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