Two men charged with Asian hate crimes in separate incidents in Seattle and San Francisco
- Christopher Hamner, 51, was charged with three counts of malicious harassment after police say he screamed profanities and threw things at women and children of Asian heritage
- Victor Humberto Brown, 53, made a first court appearance after authorities say he repeatedly punched an Asian American man at a bus stop while shouting an anti-Asian slur
Prosecutors in Seattle and San Francisco have charged men with hate crimes in separate incidents that authorities say targeted people of Asian descent amid a wave of high-profile and sometimes deadly violence which has spiked since the coronavirus pandemic began.
Hundreds of protesters took to the streets of Los Angeles and throughout the San Francisco Bay Area on Saturday, the latest in a series of rallies in response what many said has become a troubling surge of anti-Asian sentiments.
“We can no longer accept the normalisation of being treated as perpetual foreigners in this country,” speaker Tammy Kim told a rally in Los Angeles’ Koreatown.
On Friday, prosecutors in King County, Washington, charged Christopher Hamner, 51, with three counts of malicious harassment after police say he screamed profanities and threw things at cars in two incidents last week targeting women and children of Asian heritage, The Seattle Times reported on Saturday.
In San Francisco, Victor Humberto Brown, 53, made a first court appearance after authorities say he repeatedly punched an Asian American man at a bus stop while shouting an anti-Asian slur.
Brown was initially booked on misdemeanour counts, but prosecutors recently elevated the case to a felony, the San Francisco Chronicle reported. He said in court that he has a post-traumatic stress disorder.
In Seattle, according to court documents, Hamner shouted profanities and threw things at a woman stopped at a red light with her two children, ages five and 10 on March 16. Three days later, authorities say Hamner cut off another car driven by an Asian woman, shouted a profanity and the word “Asian” at her and then threw a water bottle at her car after charging at her when she pulled into a parking space.
Hamner was being held on US$75,000 bail on Saturday. It was not immediately clear if Hamner, who has not yet made a court appearance, had retained a lawyer or would be assigned a public defender.