City Council Set to Adopt Resolution Denouncing Racist Attacks

The City Council on Monday will be asked to adopt a resolution condemning hate and xenophobic violence against all persons. 

“Now, therefore, be it resolved by the City Council of the City of Pasadena as follows, the Mayor and City Council condemn and denounce the hateful messages and attacks against people of all ethnicities, races, national origins and backgrounds. The Mayor and City Council condemn and denounce the violent attacks and continued xenophobic and racist rhetoric that have occurred recently,” reads the resolution being introduced by Councilmember Tyon Hampton. 

Last week, a gunman in Georgia mowed down eight women, six of them Asian-Americans. The suspected shooter, Robert Aaron Long, 21, has been charged with eight counts of murder and one count of aggravated assault in the attacks. He is currently being held without bail. 

The mass shooting began shortly before 5 p.m. when a gunman matching Long’s description entered a massage parlor and fatally shot four people, including two Asian women.

Video footage showed the shooter fleeing in a black SUV toward Atlanta. 

Shortly before 6 p.m., police responded to a call of a robbery in progress at a spa and found four Asian women dead from apparent gunshot wounds. 

The Center for Study of Hate & Extremism published a study documenting changes in hate crime patterns in 2020 in 16 American cities which reported that in those cities, America’s largest, anti-Asian hate crimes rose by 149% in 2020 while overall hate crimes dropped by seven percent.

In those 16 cities, there were 122 such cases in 2020 compared to 49 in 2019.

U.S. Rep. Judy Chu (D-Pasadena), the first Chinese-American woman to be elected to Congress, blamed former President Donald Trump for the rise in violence against Asian Americans.

“President Trump clearly stoked the flames of xenophobia against AAPIs with his rhetoric,” Chu said.

Trump repeatedly connected COVID-19 back to Asian Americans with derogatory terms when describing the virus. 

Chu announced that members of the Congressional Asian-Pacific American Caucus have met with the Department of Justice to discuss actions to take against those who perpetrate violence against Asian American Pacific Islander (AAPI) residents.

The caucus called for the passing of the “NO HATE Act.” The act would provide money for local governments to address hate crimes, and called for March 26 to be designated as a “national day to speak out against AAPI hate.”

“Xenophobia, bigotry, and discrimination have long been directed toward Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders (AAPI) throughout U.S. history with tragic consequences, in California and across the United States for more than a century; and whereas, 2021 alone has seen multiple attacks against the AAPI community across the country, including deadly attacks on females, elderly and others of Asian descent, including multiple killings within the past week,” according to Hampton’s resolution.

The resolution also denounced violence against African, Americans, Latinos and Muslim Americans. 

“Whereas, in a report released by the FBI in November 2020 indicated that reports of hate crimes against Latinos increased in 2019, while the overall number of reports of hate-motivated killings hit its highest level since data began being collected in the early 1990s; and whereas, hate crimes targeting Muslim Americans in the United States is at an alarming level and remains the second-largest target of crimes based on religious bias, according to the FBI; and whereas, the City of Pasadena and all levels of government must stand united in combating intolerance, xenophobia, discrimination and hate against those of varying ethnicities, religious beliefs, genders and backgrounds.”