A Texas man has been charged and has been accused of harassing and assaulting an Asian family while he was on vacation in Florida.
Local authorities have given their information to reveal details to the public.
The accused, Wade Ashton, had yelled at the family to “go back to where they came from” while they pet his dogs on Okaloosa Island. According to sources, he was upset after the action had been executed.
He started to have a heated argument between a woman and Ashton. Ashton had punched the woman’s husband repeatedly during the time of their exchange.
According to an official statement from the Okaloosa County Sherriff’s Office, the woman’s husband had been separated from each other within 25 feet during the argument. When the argument started to rise, Ashton ran around the park railings and started punching the woman’s husband repeatedly.
They are predicting that the interaction ended when the husband pulled out a gun that he carries around for protection. The scene de-escalated when eyewitnesses had interfered, pulling the two apart.
Rates of hate crimes against Asians and people of Asian descent have been on the rise ever since the coronavirus pandemic first began. Although they had been on the rise, this is not the first time the community has suffered from events such as this one. There were high rates and the numbers started to peak around 2019.
The FBI warned that the pandemic would lead to a rise in hate crimes and according to the United Nations, rates of hate crimes actually were at an all time high.
Representative Grace Meng mentions that “Asian Americans have been screaming out for help, and the House and Senate and President Biden have clearly heard our pleas.
” According to the United Nations report, “racial motivated violence and other incidents against Asian-Americans have reached an alarming level across the United States since the outbreak of COVID19. [People of the AAPI community] have been subject to racist, xenophobic attacks.
Political leaders didn’t help in terms of the problem, because it has been exacerbated by people in power such as former president, Donald Trump, who commented on the virus such as “the Chinese virus” and “Wuhan flu”.