MIDLAND, Texas (AP) — A West Texas man pleaded guilty on Feb. 23 to hate crime charges for attacking an Asian family with a knife at a warehouse store in March 2020, officials said.
Jose Gomez III, 21, of Midland, Texas, pleaded guilty to three hate crime charges for assaulting Bawi Cung and his son at Sam’s Club in Midland, according to a Justice Department statement. He could be sentenced to life in prison and a $250,000 fine.
In court documents, Gomez admitted to following his family into the store, removing a knife from the store display and slashing Cung, his 6-year-old son and a store employee who tried to intervene. Gomez said he blamed China for the COVID-19 pandemic and mistook Myanmar families for Chinese. He said he considered the family a “threat” because they “come from a country that started spreading the disease”.
Cung was slashed in the face, while his son was slashed a few millimeters from the right eye to the back of his head, and his right ear was split open. Sam’s Club employee Zach Owen was stabbed in the leg and slashed in the right palm.
Gomez was pinned to the ground and shouted at his Asian family: “Get out of America!”
In an interview last year, Cung told The Associated Press that after the attack, he couldn’t walk past any of the stores without constantly looking around. My son can’t move an eyebrow now, and he doesn’t dare to sleep alone. He said he wasn’t sure what would have happened if Irving didn’t intervene.
“Maybe I’ll kill him. Maybe he’ll kill my whole family. I don’t know,” Cung said. “God protected my family. God sent Zach to protect my family at the right time.”
