Who is Jeremy Smith? Dallas salon shooting suspect who killed 3 women indicted with 7 counts of assault
DALLAS, TEXAS: The man, identified as Jeremy Smith, accused of shooting three Asian women at a salon in Dallas’ Koreatown, has been indicted on seven counts of aggravated assault. Each count is punishable by five to 99 years in prison, according to reports.
Smith, 37, is accused of shooting three women of Korean descent, the salon owner, a stylist and a customer, at the Hair World Salon in the Koreatown neighborhood in northwest Dallas on May 11. NBC reported that according to the arrest warrant affidavit, the shooter fired about 13 times at the victims and they were shot with a 0.22-caliber rifle. The women were treated for gunshot wounds and discharged from hospital. As per CBS, Smith was arrested by Dallas police on May 16 and has since been held in custody with bail set at $700K. Now on Tuesday, August 9, the Dallas County District Attorney’s Office announced the indictment with seven counts of aggravated assault with a deadly weapon, each with a hate-crime enhancement which is punishable by five to 99 years in prison, as per the report by AP. It said, "Smith is alleged to have intentionally selected the complainants because of his bias or prejudice against Asian Americans."
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AP previously reported that Smith’s girlfriend told police that he had been delusional about Asian Americans since the time he had a car crash, two years ago, with a man of Asian descent. She said he had been admitted to several mental health facilities because of the delusions. She said, "he begins having delusions that the Asian mob is after him or attempting to harm him." She also added that he was fired for verbally attacking his boss, who was of Asian descent.
Smith was captured on surveillance video running back to his four-wheeler, a Honda Odyssey minivan, with an "assault-style rifle" after the shooting. The police are still investigating the case.
Anti-Asian American violence
In 2021, six women of Asian descent were among the eight killed in a shooting at massage businesses in and near Atlanta, as per AP. A 21-year-old Texas man, Jose Gomez III, got sentenced to 25 years in prison for attacking an Asian family in 2020 because he thought they were Chinese and responsible for the Covid-19 pandemic.
The Asian American-Pacific Islander Equity Alliance, a nonprofit based in California, has collected reports of 10,370 hate incidents from March 2020 through September 2021. The report showed the data of the hate incidents, which included 4,599 cases that occurred in 2020 and 5,771 cases in 2021.