Jake Bleiberg and Jamie Stengel, Associated Press, published on Tuesday, May 17, 2022, 2:18 PM EDT
DALAS (AP) – A friend of a man arrested in Dallas on Tuesday in a shooting that injured three women at a hair salon in the city’s Korean neighborhood has told police he was admitted to health facilities because he had misconceptions about Americans of Asian descent, according to an affidavit for an arrest warrant.
Jeremy Theron Smith, 37, faces three counts of aggravated assault with a deadly weapon, according to prison records.
The FBI said Tuesday it has launched a federal investigation into hate crimes along with federal prosecutors in Texas and the U.S. Department of Justice’s civil rights department. Police Chief Eddie Garcia is expected to release additional information about the arrest later on Tuesday.
Smith, who is Black, is in jail and no bail has been imposed. There is no lawyer for him in the prison archives.
According to an affidavit from The Dallas Morning News, Smith’s girlfriend told authorities that every time Smith was around an Asian American, “he began to have delusions that the Asian mafia was stalking or trying to harm him.”
The newspaper reported that she told detectives that he had misconceptions about Americans of Asian descent since he was involved in a car accident about two years ago with a man of Asian descent. She said he was also fired for “verbal assault” on his boss, who is of Asian descent.
Garcia said the shooting last Wednesday at the Hair World Salon could be linked to two previous shootings in businesses run by Asian Americans.
Dallas FBI spokeswoman Melinda Urbina said agents were working with city police “to thoroughly investigate the incident”, but she could not provide further information as the investigation continues.
The shooting in Dallas came days before a white gunman killed 10 blacks at a supermarket in Buffalo, New York, on Saturday, and a gunman motivated by political hatred for Taiwan killed one man and wounded five Sunday night in the south. California Church, where mostly elderly Taiwanese parishioners had gathered.
Authorities in Dallas said a man dressed entirely in black opened fire on the hall, then left the mall in a maroon minivan. Garcia said investigators found that a similar vehicle had been reported to be involved in two other recent shootings. Someone opened fire while driving near the saloon on April 2, and Garcia said the minivan was also linked to a May 10 shooting about 40 miles (40 kilometers) southeast. No one was injured in any of the shootings.
The three women who were shot dead in the gym on Wednesday were taken to hospital with non-life-threatening injuries.
Jane Bay, the daughter of one of the injured women, told the Associated Press last week that her mother said she did not recognize the shooter, who calmly entered the hall, opened fire and then left.
“He was calm. He just walked over to him and then stood there – he wasn’t walking – but he stood there and fired like 20 shots and then he just came out calmly, “said Bay, who was not there but had talked to her mother.
The salon is in the heart of the Korean Quarter, which is part of the city, transformed in the 1980s from an industrial zone into a thriving neighborhood with shops, restaurants, markets, medical offices and salons.
Anti-Asian violence has risen sharply in recent years. Last year, six women of Asian descent were among the eight killed in mass shootings in and near Atlanta, fueling anger and fear among Asian Americans.
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Associated Press writer Jill Blade of Little Rock, Arkansas, contributed to the report.
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