Texas man accused of attacking Asian family over racist coronavirus fears pleads guilty to hate-crim

Also: Texan pleads guilty to hate-crime attack on Asian family (Associated Press)

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Source: Washington Post

Texas man accused of attacking Asian family over racist coronavirus fears pleads guilty to hate-crime charges

By Bryan Pietsch
February 24, 2022 at 2:13 a.m. EST

A 21-year-old Texas man who attempted to kill an Asian man and his young child because he thought they were Chinese — and therefore, he said, responsible for the coronavirus pandemic — has pleaded guilty to federal hate-crime charges, the Justice Department said Wednesday.

On the evening of March 14, 2020, just as the pandemic was starting to take hold in the United States, Jose Gomez III followed the family into a Sam’s Club in Midland, Tex., about 300 miles west of Dallas, before splitting off and asking employees where he could find utensils, according to an affidavit.

Gomez then grabbed a serrated steak knife and confronted the family members — who were not Chinese, but of Southeast Asian descent — punching the father and then slashing his face with the knife, according to the affidavit.

Gomez went back to the aisle to grab a larger eight-inch knife and returned to the family, prosecutors said, attacking the two young children, who were 2 and 6 years old and seated in the front basket of a shopping cart.

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Read more: https://www.washingtonpost.com/nation/2022/02/24/texas-asian-family-attack-hate-crime/

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Source: Associated Press

Texan pleads guilty to hate-crime attack on Asian family

February 23, 2022

MIDLAND, Texas (AP) — A West Texas man pleaded guilty Wednesday to hate-crime charges from his March 2020 knife attack on an Asian family at a warehouse store, officials said.

Jose Gomez III, 21, of Midland, Texas, pleaded guilty to three hate-crime counts from his attack on Bawi Cung and his son at a Midland Sam’s Club, according to a Justice Department statement. He could be sentenced to life imprisonment and fined $250,000.

In court documents, Gomez admitted following the family into the store, taking a knife from a store display and slashing Cung, his 6-year-old son and a store employee who tried to intervene. Gomez said he blamed China for the COVID-19 pandemic and mistook the Burmese family for Chinese. He said he perceived the family to be a “threat” as they were “from the country who started spreading that disease around.”

Cung was slashed in the face, while his son was slashed millimeters from his right eye to the back of his head, splitting his right ear. Sam’s Club employee Zach Owen was stabbed in the leg and slashed in the right palm.

While being held down on the ground, Gomez yelled at the Asian family, “Get out of America!”

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Read more: https://apnews.com/article/coronavirus-pandemic-business-health-crime-texas-0a2d8913a7d693b911c373d8003dfcba