According to the affidavit, Davis mentioned targeting the woman “due to [her] being Chinese” and “made statements that race was a factor in why she stabbed her.” Davis also told the detective that she attacked her because it would be “one less person to blow up our country.”
The university’s Asian Culture Center called it a “horrific and targeted anti-Asian hate crime” in a Facebook statement, adding: “We should not be fearing for our lives on public transportation.”
Manjusha Kulkarni, co-founder of Stop AAPI Hate and executive director of the AAPI Equity Alliance, said Davis’s alleged comment about the victim — which appeared to reference the detonation of a bomb — reminded her of the backlash against South Asians, Sikhs and Muslim Americans after the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks.
