Suspect with ‘delusions’ about Asian mob arrested for shooting at Dallas Korean hair salon; FBI opens hate crime investigation
A man with “delusions that the Asian mob is after him” was charged Tuesday with shooting three Korean women at a Dallas hair salon last week.
The Dallas Police Department, which said the suspect was being interviewed and processed, did not release his name but NBC 5 identified him as 36-year-old Jeremy Theron Smith.
Smith’s girlfriend allegedly told police that after a car crash with an Asian driver several years ago, he began having “near panic attacks when he is around anyone of Asian descent” and “delusions that the Asian mob is after him or attempting to harm him,” according to an arrest warrant affidavit. He was also allegedly fired from a job after yelling at his Asian boss.
After Smith was picked up Monday night, police found a .380 handgun magazine with four live rounds in his pocket and a .380 handgun in his minivan, along with 10 more live rounds, according to NBC 5.
He has been charged with three charges of aggravated assault with a deadly weapon.
Smith allegedly walked into the Hair World Salon around 2:20 p.m. last Wednesday and began firing, then fled in a maroon minivan, according to officials.
Three women, including 44-year-old salon owner Chang Hye Jin, were hit and suffered non-life-threatening injuries. All three have since been released from the hospital.
Dallas Police Chief Eddie Garcia said last week that a car matching the same description may be linked to two other shootings at Asian businesses in the area.
Three Korean women shot outside Dallas hair salon, police won’t rule out hate crime
The Dallas FBI field office has opened a federal hate crime investigation in conjunction with the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Northern District in Texas and the Civil Rights Division of the Department of Justice, a spokeswoman confirmed to the Daily News Tuesday.
At a public safety meeting Monday night at the Korean Cultural Center, two of the victims, the salon owner and an employee, sat and listened while police ran through the security measures they’ve taken, including extra patrols in Koreatown.
“Hate has no place in this city,” Garcia said, according to WFAA.
The shooting came barely a year after the Atlanta spa shootings, during which 21-year-old Robert Aaron Long fatally shot eight people, including six Asian women. He later claimed he was suffering from a sex addiction and blamed the spas.
