Fairfax County, Virginia, police have met with the county’s Korean business owners to warn them about a disturbing series of overnight burglaries.
Fifteen overnight burglaries since Jan. 28 are believed to be connected. Several Korean-owned businesses in the Annandale and Falls Church areas were targeted, a fact concerning enough to Fairfax County police that they organized an online community meeting to raise awareness.
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“We have a very strong law enforcement here,” said Tinh Phan of the Virginia Asian Chamber of Commerce. “We need to take advantage of that to the utmost to protect us because we pay the same tax, we abide the same law, we deserve the same protection.”
Last week in Columbia, Maryland, three Asian restaurants were burglarized on Lunar New Year, the most important holiday in the Chinese culture.
The increase in crimes against Asian-owned businesses and people of Asian descent has drawn the attention of Democrats in Congress. They want to pass a bill requiring stronger action by the Justice Department.
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Some point the finger at former President Donald Trump.
“When it comes to the Asian American community, he spent months and months and months inflaming prejudices and passions against the Asian American community through racist terms like ‘kung flu,’ and when that happens, it does turn parts of the American population against the Asian American community,” said Rep. Ted Lieu, D-Calif.
One restaurant owner said they’d been in business for more than a decade but had never before been burglarized.
