New York:
In the latest incident of alleged hate crime in the US, a Sikh man was brutally assaulted by a white man who pulled his beard, kicked and punched him in the face at a convenience store in the state of Oregan. Harwinder Singh Dodd, who was working at a convenience store, was racially targeted on Monday by 24-year-old Andrew Ramsey. Ramsey targeted Dodd because of his perception of the employee’s religion, FOX 12 TV news reported, citing a court document.
Ramsey wanted rolling papers for cigarettes, but did not have an ID and the clerk would not sell them to him, Justin Brecht, a legislative policy adviser in the Oregon State Capitol and a former combat Marine, was quoted as saying by the report.
According to the report, when Dodd asked Ramsey to leave, he attacked him by pulling his beard, punching him in the face, pulling him to the ground and kicking him, Brecht said, adding that they held Ramsey down until the cops arrived.
“He was bleeding, he had gotten punched quite a bit in the face, and kicked on the ground and thrown to the ground very brutally. It was very serious.”
Ramsey was charged with a hate crime, assault, police said, adding that he threw his shoe at Dodd and tried to steal his turban. He was also charged with assault in the fourth degree, disorderly conduct and criminal trespass.
Hate crimes have increased by 40 per cent in Oregon from 2016 to 2017, according to the FBI. In August 2018, in about a week, two Sikh men were brutally assaulted in the US State of California that raised concerns over increasing incidents of hate crimes in the country.
Last year, the South Asian Americans Leading Together (SAALT) published a report documenting a 45 per cent increase in hate violence and rhetoric against Indians, Sikhs, and South Asian Americans from the year prior.
