A Texas man has been sentenced to 25 years in prison for a hate crime after attacking an Asian family, including punching and cutting a father and slashing his 6-year-old child.
On March 14, 2020, 21-year-old Jose Gomez III entered a Sam’s Club facility in Midland, Texas, behind an “Asian family with young children,” the Justice Department said in a news release Thursday. .
Gomez believed the family to be Chinese and “blamed them for the COVID-19 pandemic,” the department said. Gomez in February pleaded guilty to three hate crime counts.
After entering the store, he found a serrated steak knife, “bent the blade so that when he held the handle in his fist, the blade rested against his knuckles, the cutting edge facing out”, and hit the father in the family, the department confirmed. Gomez cut the father’s face.
He then retrieved another knife from the store and targeted the man’s young children. Gomez “opened the face” of the 6-year-old, and “the blade entered within millimeters of [the child’s] right eye, split his right ear and rolled up on the back of his skull,” the department said.
Gomez also stabbed a store employee who tried to intervene. During the incident, Gomez yelled at the Asian family to “get out of America.”
Officials said Gomez admitted to attacking the employee, who is white, because he “wanted to kill the six-year-old and [the employee] prevented him from doing so,” the department said in Thursday’s press release.
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“Hate crimes targeting Asian Americans have increased during the pandemic and must be addressed. All people deserve to feel safe in their community, regardless of race, color or national origin,” Assistant Attorney General Kristen Clarke for the Justice Department’s Civil Rights Division said in the release. hurry.
Violence against Asian Americans has increased across the country during the ongoing coronavirus pandemic. In December, the New York City Police Department reported that incidents targeting Asians increased 361% over the previous year.
Contributor: Grace Hauck
USA Today