Asian-American community angered by erroneous report that Donald Trump shooter was Chinese

Dash to blame plus community’s rapid response followed years of hate incidents and scapegoating during the coronavirus pandemic

Reading Time:3 minutes

A demonstrator holds a sign calling for a stop to hate against Asian-Americans and Pacific Islanders in Seattle, Washington, on March 27, 2021. Photo: AFP

Published: 3:40am, 16 Jul 2024Updated: 7:51pm, 16 Jul 2024

The Asian-American community has reacted angrily to an early erroneous report stating that the shooter involved in an attempted assassination of former president Donald Trump over the weekend was Chinese.

The rush to judgment played out in the New York Post, a tabloid newspaper, that initially said the shooter was “identified as a Chinese man” before reporting a little over an hour later that the gunman was “identified only as a white male”.

The suspected gunman was identified as Thomas Matthew Crooks, 20, who was killed by snipers at the scene.

“In this current era of heightened anti-Asian hate, Chinese-Americans and the Asian-American community are already looking over their shoulders on a daily basis,” said Gary Locke, a former US ambassador to China, in a letter released on Monday by the Committee of 100, a Chinese-American civic group he chairs.

“By irresponsibly reporting false information – that the alleged gunman was Chinese – your reporters have caused the Chinese-American community additional harm,” added Locke, whose government service included stints as US commerce secretary and governor of the state of Washington.

The dash to blame as well as the rapid Asian-American response followed years of hate incidents and scapegoating of the Asian American and Pacific Islander (AAPI) community during the coronavirus pandemic, which Trump and others referred to as the “kung flu” and “Asian flu”.