A spokesperson for the Cherokee County, Georgia, Sheriff’s Office who said the 21-year-old man who murdered 8 people, mostly Asian women, in three massage parlors in the Atlanta area on Tuesday was having a “very bad day”, posted racist images on social media blaming China for the coronavirus pandemic.
According to an exclusive report from the Daily Beast, a Facebook page associated with Capt. Jay Baker of the Cherokee Sheriff’s Office, has several photos showing the cop promoting T-shirts with the slogan “COVID-19 imported virus from CHY-NA.”
“Place your order while they last,” Baker wrote with a smiley face on a March 30 post.
“Love my shirt,” Baker wrote in another post in April 2020. “Get yours while they last.’”
Sheriff Frank Reynolds said he was not familiar with the racist photos and thanks the Daily Beast for bringing them to his attention.
The massacre at the three Asian massage parlors comes as there’s a spike in the number of hate crimes reported against members of the Asian community since the start of the pandemic. Those attacks were brought on by the same language used by Capt. Baker in his social media posts.
According to data from Stop AAPI Hate, a national coalition documenting discrimination during the pandemic, there are nearly 3,800 reported incidents of anti-Asian hate between March 2020 and last month.
