Six black male suspects jailed in Bay Area after more than 70 Asian women victimized
December 26, 2021 | Robert Jonathan | Print Article
A multi-jurisdictional, year-long investigation has led to the arrest of six men in the San Francisco Bay area who allegedly victimized large numbers of Asian women in a purported massive crime spree
"Authorities said the six suspects worked together on more than 70 incidents of robbery, theft and burglary from October 2020 to September 2021. Firearms, including one ghost gun, were recovered during the investigation," the Mercury News reported. The suspects, who are allegedly all in their 20s, face hate-crime charges, in addition to robbery-related offenses.
"[A]uthorities used cell phone evidence, video surveillance, search warrants, interviews and other methods to determine that 177 robberies throughout the Bay Area were connected," the news outlet added.
According to the San Jose, Calif., Police Department, "a prolific robbery crew…targeted victims of Asian descent; Asian females were frequently the targeted victims and many were injured during the robberies."
The modus operandi of the suspects was as follows, the Washington Post reported. "They honed their methods, according to prosecutors: surveilling Asian grocery store parking lots, stalking women to make sure they were alone, using cars to pin victims' vehicles, smashing car windows if necessary, and snatching purses, shopping bags or other valuables within reach. Then they bolted…They generally scored between $500 and $2,000 in each of their robberies."
At a presser earlier this month held in a neighborhood of San Jose that is called Little Saigon, Santa Clara County District Attorney Jeff Rosen claimed that the suspects "targeted Asian women, they thought Asian women don't use banks and they made other ethnic slurs against Asians," according to the Mercury News.
"I decided to charge this also as a hate crime for a few reasons. Number one, it adds additional time in custody, which is appropriate for a case of this magnitude. Number two, I recognize that a hate crime doesn't only affect the individuals involved… it also affects the people in the Asian American community who were not targeted in that it makes them fearful that they may be next," Rosen explained, CBS San Francisco affiliate KPIX reported.
2/ These 6 suspects face a variety of charges with hate crime enhancements pic.twitter.com/5HVvN3faek
— San José Police Media Relations (@SJPD_PIO) December 15, 2021
"While we live in different places and our families came from different countries, we take your safety seriously and we take it personally," Rosen added.
All suspects are presumed innocent until or unless they are convicted in a court of law of any alleged crimes. The investigation is ongoing, and detectives have requested the public's assistance in the context of any similar incidents that have not yet been reported.
Cops haves stepped up patrols where a spike in robberies has occurred.
According to KPIX, three of the six have already been released from jail.
Citing FBI statistics, anti-Asian hate crimes surged by more than 73 percent last year, NBC News reported in October 2021.
A number of ghastly incidents caught on video have occurred in crime-ridden New York City and in other municipalities around the country.
Watch a report on the Bay Area arrests from KTVU, Fox 2 San Francisco embedded below:
Robert Jonathan
Robert@bizpacreview.com
Robert Jonathan is a staff writer for BizPac Review. He is a longtime writer/editor for news aggregation websites and has also developed content in the legal and financial publishing sectors as well as for online education. He earned a Juris Doctorate from the University of Connecticut School of Law, "a law school the basketball teams can be proud of."
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