A spokeswoman for the Sheriff’s Office, Cherokee County, Georgia, said Wednesday afternoon that a 21-year-old white man had killed eight people, including a pin-dead Asian woman, in a fatal shooting Tuesday on a “very bad day.”
“Yesterday was a very bad day for him and this was it,” Jay Baker said during a joint news conference with the Atlanta Police Department about 21-year-old Robert Aaron Long.
But the same spokesman seems to have shared racist content online, including pointing the finger at China for the ongoing coronavirus epidemic – the same Vitriol advocates say has led to a horrific increase in violence against Asian Americans.
In a Facebook page associated with Captain Jay Baker of the Cherokee Sheriff’s Office, many photos show law enforcement promoting T-shirts with the slogan “COVID-19 imported virus from CHV-NA”.
“Place your order as long as they last,” Baker wrote with a smiling face on a March 30 photo that included racist T-shirts.
“Love my shirt,” Baker wrote in another post in April 2020.
The shirts are printed by Deadline Appeal, owned by a former deputy sheriff of Cherokee County, and sold for 22 d. The store, which promotes fully customizable gear, prints shirts for the Cherokee County Sheriffs Office Fee Honor Guard, “mon formal unit, for all volunteers who represent the county not only as sheriff’s office fees but also when participating in various events.” ”According to the March 10 Instagram post.
The photo on Baker’s account was first shown by a Twitter user.
Multiple photos on the Facebook page show Baker in his uniform and in the sheriff’s department functions, with a photo of his name clearly visible. Baker did not immediately respond to requests for comment on his personal cell phone and to the Cherokee County Sheriff’s Office.
When contacted by the Daily Beast, Sheriff Frank Reynolds, who claims to be friends with Baker on Facebook, said he was not familiar with the racist photos.
“I am not aware of this. I have to contact him, but thank you for bringing it to my attention, “Reynolds said.
Reynolds’ official Sheriff’s Department page list is summarized in detail in the State Department’s workspace from 2005 to 2008 as part of his previous experience: WPPS HTP, IC BWUSA. This will provide support for the Worldwide Personal Protective Services, contracted by the federal government to an independent contractor, Blackwater USA. She wants to work in Iraq without naming her employer on her campaign page. But an outspoken Reynolds supporter and fellow member of the department shared an image of the then-candidate’s security clearance on Facebook to dispel rumors that he had a criminal record in 2016. This image, named after Reynolds, shows the number of contracts corresponding indefinitely. The state department signed with Blackwater in 2005 to provide security guards and control services.
She became infamous in Baghdad in 2007 after her bodyguards shot dead 17 Iraqi civilians. There is currently no evidence linking Reynolds to the incident, and he did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Massacres have taken place at three Asian massage parlors amid a shocking wave of anti-Asian violence in the United States. Authorities say Long, a suspect in the heinous crimes, insisted he was not deliberately targeting people of Asian descent. Still, police, including Baker, said the investigation is ongoing and the murder could still be classified as a hate crime.
The fact that Long allegedly targeted Asian massage parlors and killed half a dozen Asian women caused a stir among online and community leaders. About 3,800 incidents of anti-Asian hatred were reported between March 2020 and last month, according to API Hate, a national coalition stop documenting discrimination during the epidemic.
During a news conference Wednesday, Baker appeared to downplay Long’s alleged actions, and told reporters the 21-year-old blamed the crimes for his “sexual addiction” issues. Baker said Long targeted the spa “to get out of that temptation.”
Baker’s adopted brother, Anthony Baker, is a Georgia Superior Court judge – and, according to a profile published in January, was born in Vietnam to a woman who married an American soldier.
– With reporting by Maxwell Tani, Noor Ibrahim and Blake Montgomery
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