Democratic lawmakers are using a mass shooting in Georgia to hit former President Donald Trump’s rhetoric concerning COVID-19 and making claims not supported by law enforcement statements.
Democrats in Washington have blamed the mass shooting in Atlanta, which left eight dead, on anti-Asian American sentiment allegedly drummed up by Trump and others referring to COVID-19 as the “China Virus” or the “Wuhan Virus.” COVID-19 originated in Wuhan, China, sometime in 2019 and spread globally largely due to Beijing’s efforts to hide key information about the illness.
“This is the aftermath of a whole year of Donald Trump’s using the terms ‘China Virus’ and ‘Wuhan Virus’ and creating hatred,” Rep. Judy Chu (D-CA), chair of the Congressional Asian Pacific American Caucus, told Politico.
She repeated her assertions against Trump at a Wednesday House Democratic Caucus press conference.
“President Trump clearly stoked the flames of xenophobia against AAPIs with his rhetoric,” Chu said. “The CDC and the World Health Organization said that we should all use the official term, COVID-19, in order to make sure that this disease is not associated with a particular geographical location or ethnicity due to the stigma it causes. And President Trump refused to acknowledge that.”
Rep. Steve Cohen (D-TN) blamed use of the term “China Virus” in a veiled shot at Trump during a Thursday hearing on anti-Asian American violence in the House Judiciary Subcommittee on the Constitution, Civil Rights and Civil Liberties.
“While there’s still many details to be learned about Tuesday’s horrific shootings in Atlanta that left eight people dead, six of them reportedly of Asian descent, one thing is certain: for many Asian Americans, Tuesday’s shocking events felt like the inevitable culmination of a year in which there were nearly 3,800 incidents of anti-Asian hate incidents that grew increasingly more violent over time as the COVID-19 pandemic worsened and some people wrongly blamed Asian Americans, or implied such by calling it the ‘China Virus,’” Cohen said at the start of the hearing.
Rep. Steve Cohen addresses Asian Americans "who are understandably feeling hurt and afraid right now, and wondering whether anyone else in America cares."
"Congress sees you, we stand with you, we will do everything in our power to protect you." https://t.co/xYMAqcscOk pic.twitter.com/6AW4TOQBm8
— ABC News Politics (@ABCPolitics) March 18, 2021
Police arrested and charged a 21-year-old man with eight counts of murder after police say he went on a shooting spree targeting three massage parlors in Atlanta. The suspect told police that he had a “sexual addiction” and targeted the massage parlors, which he had frequented, to get rid of the “temptation,” according to The New York Times.
Law enforcement have not yet given a conclusive answer on the shooter’s motivation. Cherokee County Sheriff Frank Reynolds said that the suspect “frequented these places in the past and may have been lashing out.”
Atlanta Police Department acting Chief Rodney Bryant said that, so far, the police are not considering the shooting a hate crime, though they have not ruled it out.
“We are still early in this investigation, so we cannot make that determination at this moment,” Chief Bryant said. “We are just not there as of yet.”