North Texas activists demand officials classify Allen mall shooting as hate crime

Dallas activist groups demanded at a press conference Monday that authorities thoroughly investigate the possibility that the May 6 mass shooting in Allen was a racially motivated hate crime.

“Despite killer’s racist content targeting Indian women among other groups, local law enforcement downplays role of targeted racism and hate in the devastating mass shooting,” a press release signed by multiple advocacy groups said.

Authorities have not officially determined the gunman’s motive for the May 6 shooting that killed eight people and injured seven at the Allen Premium Outlets mall. On May 9, Texas Department of Public Safety North Texas Regional Director Hank Sibley said at a news conference the agency can’t yet confirm whether the attack was an act of domestic terrorism motivated by racist or Nazi obsession. DPS did confirm 33-year-old Mauricio Garcia had “neo-Nazi ideation” and acknowledged that a Russian social media profile with white supremacist, misogynistic, anti-LGBTQ and antisemitic posts is believed to be the shooter’s, but said his motive remains under investigation.

Out of the eight people who Garcia killed, four were of Asian descent. Among the seven people injured in the shooting are a 6-year-old Korean-American boy whose parents and brother were killed, and a man from India whose friend was killed. At least one injured victim is Black. At least four victims were Hispanic, as was the shooter.

At Monday’s press conference, Lily Trieu, interim executive director of Asian Texans for Justice, said the statements Sibley made about the shooting were “outrageous” because it seemed the agency dismissed the shooting as a possible hate crime before a thorough investigation has been completed.

“Our community is scared to be together amongst one another,” she said. “So designating it a hate crime, doing a thorough investigation, is the lowest bar of what can be done.”

The press conference was held at the Dallas Truth, Racial Healing & Transformation building and included the Dallas Asian American Historical Society, SAAVETX Education Fund, Asian Texans for Justice and Somos Tejas.

Calls to label shooting as hate crime

Allen is a destination for many Asian families, Chandra Parbhoo with SAAVETX Education Fund said at the press briefing, and the outlet mall is frequented by people of diverse backgrounds and ethnicity. The shooting “was an intentional attack that intensified our sense of vulnerability and a lack of safety,” she said, and left the community “frightened knowing that someone with so much hate had targeted us.”

Parbhoo urged elected officials to acknowledge that most of the victims were immigrants or people of color and classify the mass shooting as a hate crime.

“Weapons of mass destruction and hate groups are a dangerous mix for Texas,” she said. “We must support a full and thorough investigation by authorities.”

Trieu, and several other speakers, drew connections between how the Allen shooting has been handled to authorities’ initial response to the Dallas Koreatown shooting last year. In May 2022, a gunman shot three women inside a Koreatown salon. Dallas Police Chief Eddie Garcia initially said he could “confidently say” there was no indication the shooting was motivated by hate. A day later, the gunman was linked to two other shootings targeting Asian-American businesses, and Garcia reversed his statement to say the authorities did see the shooting as a hate crime. Trieu noted Garcia met with business owners and offered them resources after the shooting.

“This is a string of repeated actions — this has now become a pattern of the Department of Public Safety not taking the seriousness of AAPI safety as a real concern,” she said.

Hate crimes send a violent message to members of the targeted community, said Stephanie Drenka, co-founder and executive director of the Dallas Asian American Historical Society. The message from the Allen shooting was one of racism and hate, and the response from law enforcement and officials has to be a strong denouncement of that hate, she said. The lack of a strong response from law enforcement and officials makes communities of color feel more vulnerable, she said, and “leaves the door open for people who would commit crimes like this to think they have the leeway to do so.”

Caroline Kim, an Asian-American resident of Dallas, spoke at the press conference about her personal experience with racism in North Texas. Kim said it is important to quickly label a hate crime as such because “doing so mobilizes communities, law enforcement and resources faster; media responds faster and differently.”

Jerry Hawkins, executive director with Dallas Truth, Racial Healing & Transformation, called on local municipalities and DPS to detail their plans for combating “the domestic threat of white nationalism.” Hawkins said he was on a call with the White House just before President Joe Biden gave a speech Saturday in which the president said white supremacy “is the single most dangerous terrorist threat in our homeland.”

Hawkins said elected officials should be having similar conversations about the threat of white supremacy in Texas, where the FBI and other agencies have identified a potential hotbed of white nationalist extremism.

Several speakers also called on elected officials to pass gun safety legislation to tackle the prevalence of mass shootings. Ramiro Luna, co-founder and executive director of Somos Tejas, listed various other shootings where the shooter used an AR-15, and said Texas leaders should at least do something to limit the use of the gun.