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Bad Cops Who Do Awful Things
If the stakes weren’t so high, it would have warranted a giant eye-roll: In the aftermath of the very-likely-racially-motivated murders of eight people in Atlanta, Cherokee County Sheriff’s Captain Jay Baker said it was “a really bad day” for the shooter. Law enforcement officials have repeated the statement that it’s unclear whether the killings, which included six victims of Asian American descent, were racially motivated. As BuzzFeed News reports, “His comments and officials’ decision to focus on the suspect’s narrative amid a spate of increased hate incidents against Asian Americans have been widely criticized.”
Surprising exactly no one, this same police officer turns out to have posted pictures of racist T-shirts implying that Chinese people spread the coronavirus. It’s the kind of thing that adds to an already toxic narrative. As Stephanie K. Baer writes for BuzzFeed News, “A report published Tuesday by the organization Stop AAPI Hate found nearly 3,800 reported hate incidents targeting Asian Americans in the past year, in part due to racist scapegoating over Covid-19.”
