Jack Breiberg and Jamie Stengel
Associated Press
DALLAS (AP) — The girlfriend of a man who was arrested after shooting three Asian women at a hair salon in Koreatown, Dallas told police he had a delusional Asian-American attempt to hurt him, a statement The arrest warrant affidavit said.
Jeremy Smith | Credit: Dallas Police Department
Jeremy Smith faces three counts of aggravated assault with a deadly weapon, police said. Smith is being held on $300,000 bail, according to prison records, which do not list a lawyer for him. His ages are listed as 36 and 37 in public records.
Asked at a May 17 news conference if he thought the shooting was racist, mental health or both, Dallas Police Chief Eddie Garcia said it was too soon to say premature.
“Right now, it’s a hate issue. It’s a hate crime. And yet, it shows, and I’m not saying that here. I can tell you that I know our community sees it as a hate crime.
I think it’s a hate crime, and so are our men and women,” Garcia said.
The FBI said it has opened a federal hate crime investigation with federal prosecutors in Texas and the U.S. Justice Department’s civil rights division.
Police say the May 11 shooting at the Hair World salon may be related to two previous drive-by shootings at Asian-American-run businesses. But Garcia said police were still investigating whether Smith, who was black, was involved. The description of the suspect’s vehicle was similar in all three shootings.
According to the affidavit, Smith’s girlfriend told detectives that he had been delusional about Asian Americans since a car accident with an Asian man two years ago. He was admitted to several mental health facilities due to delusions, she said.
Whenever Smith was around an Asian American, “he would start fantasizing about Asian thugs chasing him or trying to hurt him,” his girlfriend told police. She said he was fired for “verbally attacking” his Asian-American boss.
Garcia declined to comment on whether Smith was diagnosed with a mental illness or whether Smith legally obtained the gun used in the shooting, saying both issues are still under investigation.
Anti-Asian violence has risen sharply in recent years during the COVID-19 pandemic, first reported in the Chinese city of Wuhan.
Last year, a shooting at a massage parlor in and around Atlanta that killed eight people, including six Asian women, fueled Asian-American anger and fear. In February, a Midland man from 330 miles west of Dallas pleaded guilty to federal hate crimes for assaulting an Asian family in 2020 because he believed they were Chinese and responsible for the COVID-19 pandemic.
The Dallas salon where the shooting took place is in the heart of Koreatown, a city that was transformed in the 1980s from an industrial area to a thriving district with shopping, dining, markets, medical offices and salons.
Authorities said a man dressed in black opened fire at the salon before leaving in a maroon van. Garcia said investigators found that a similar vehicle was reportedly involved in two other recent shootings. On April 2, someone drove by near the salon, and Garcia said similar vehicles were also involved in the May 10 shooting about 25 miles southeast of the salon. No one was injured in the two shootings.
Garcia said the suspect walked into the salon with a .22-caliber rifle and fired about 13 shots. One woman suffered injuries to her arm, one to her foot and another to her lower back, he said. They have all been discharged from the hospital and are recovering, according to police.
One of the women injured in the shooting spoke at a community meeting with police. Dangling her arms in a sling, she said in Korean that she was worried about how she would continue to make a living.
“Some lives have changed forever because of this,” Garcia said.
Police Senior Cpl. Sunan also addressed reporters at the news conference, delivering a statement in Korean about the arrest for the Texas Korean-speaking reporters present. Garcia said the department has 10 officers who speak Korean.
On May 16, dozens of people packed a room at the Korean Cultural Center in Dallas for a city hall security meeting with police. At the meeting, Garcia assured attendees that detectives are working on the case nonstop. Some attendees thanked the police, while others inquired about the work being done to make the community safer.
John Lee, a board member and former president of the Greater Dallas Korean-American Chamber of Commerce, said he thought he got a reassurance from the police that attendees would be cured. He noted that some attendees “are more angry and let people know, and some are more grateful.”
“I think emotions cover the whole spectrum from anger to pain to fear to all of that,” Lee said.
