Rocky Mountain Police is investigating a robbery that occurred in Los Angeles, California on May 10. The robbery also involves the topic “Asian Hatred” that has recently attracted attention. Since the outbreak of the epidemic, Asians have been stigmatized in the U.S. maliciously. In addition to verbal harassment, there have even been several cases of injury, from the January 28th incident that an elderly Thai (Vicha Ratanapakedd) was knocked from the back by an unknown person while going out for a walk and fell to the ground, to the most horrific March 16th in Asia’s Talanta shooting. It can be found that the hatred of Asians has been escalating. The police speculated that this was a crime with potential hate elements, because in the film, the gangster scolded the victim during the process: “Go back to China!”Afterwards, Mr. Luo said that the gangster kept asking him if he was from China during the crime. He kept saying that he was from Taiwan. He suspected that if he hadn’t said that, the gangster might have shot him.
At about 9:20 pm on May 10, a 67-year-old Lyft driver Paul Paul (Liao Paul) spent a while at the Arco gas station in El Monte, Los Angeles, and took a rest in the car after cleaning his car. However, he forgot to lock the door, and a man suddenly rushed into the back seat and pointed a pistol at Liao, demanding the car. Mr. Liao said, “Well, don’t shoot. I’ll give you the money. That’s okay.” In the film of the incident, you can also see the gangster pointing a pistol at Mr. Liao, robbing his mobile phone, and finally robbed 1,560. US dollars.
During Mr. Liao’s resistance, the gangster attacked Mr. Liao twice and his face caused him to bleed.
The driver’s daughter-in-law, Christine Ting, launched a fundraiser on the fundraising platform GoFundMe after the incident. In just two days, more than 1,000 netizens donated a total of more than 27,000 US dollars (approximately NT$760,000), which far exceeds the original target of US$3,000. Christine said that the father-in-law was very grateful for the large amount of donations and care that came in after the news report. Although there was still a hate message from unknown netizens, most of the kindness made him feel very warm, and most of the messages hope that the money can help him seek medical treatment and catch the gangster as soon as possible.
The Rocky Mountain police also said that in the film the gangster pulled off the mask and the facial recognition was clearly visible. They are now reviewing surveillance videos at gas stations and searching the criminal record database to identify the gangster.
Article reference source
https://abc7.com/lyft-driver-robbed-uber-south-el-monte-robbery-gofundme/10664404/
