A spokesman for the sheriff’s office in Cherokee County, Georgia, was attacked Wednesday afternoon for fixing the deadly shooting that left eight dead, including six Asian women, in the “very bad day.” ‘a 21-year-old white man.
“Yesterday was a really bad day for him and he did,” Jay Baker said during the joint press conference with the Atlanta Police Department about 21-year-old Robert Aaron Long.
But it looks like the same spokesman shared racist content online, including pointing the finger at China for the ongoing coronavirus pandemic, according to the vitriol advocates themselves, which has fueled a horrific rise in violence against Asian Americans.
On a Facebook page associated with Captain Jay Baker of the Cherokee Sheriff’s Office, several photos show that law enforcement was promoting T-shirts with the slogan “COVID-19 imported virus from CHY-NA.”
“Place your order while they last,” Baker wrote with a smiling face in a March 30 photo that included racist T-shirts.
“Love my shirt,” Baker wrote in another post in April 2020. “Get yours while they last.”
The T-shirts appear to be printed by Deadline Appeal, owned by a former Cherokee County deputy sheriff, and sold for $ 22. The store, which promotes fully customizable items, also appears to print shirts for the Cherokee County Sheriff’s Office honor guard, a “ceremonial unit, all volunteers, representing not only the sheriff’s office but also the county when they participate in various events, ”according to an Instagram post on March 10th.
Photos from Baker’s account were first viewed by a Twitter user.
Several photos on the Facebook page show Baker in his uniform and attending the sheriff’s department functions, including one with his name tag clearly visible. Baker did not immediately respond to requests for comment on his personal cell phone or at the Cherokee County Sheriff’s Office.
When contacted by The Daily Beast, Sheriff Frank Reynolds, who appears to be Baker’s friend on Facebook, said he did not know the racist photos.
“I am not aware of it. I will have to get in touch with him, but thank you for bringing this to my attention, ”said Reynolds.
The official page of Reynolds sheriff’s department lists as part of his previous experience a stage from 2005 to 2008 in the State Department described entirely in abbreviations: WPPS HTP, IC BWUSA. This would appear to represent Worldwide Personal Protective Services, a contract the federal government awarded to independent contractor Blackwater USA. His campaign page alludes to working in Iraq without naming his employer. But an apparent Reynolds supporter and department member shared an image on Facebook of the then candidate’s security clearance to dispel rumors he had a criminal record in 2016. The image, called Reynolds, showed a contract number corresponding to a indefinite agreement that the State Department printed with Blackwater to provide security guards and control services in 2005.
Blackwater became famous after his private guards shot dead 17 Iraqi civilians in Baghdad in 2007. There is currently no evidence linking Reynolds to that incident and he did not immediately respond to a request for further comment.
The massacre at three Asian massage parlors comes amid a shocking wave of anti-Asian violence in the United States. Authorities say Long, the suspect in the terrible crimes, insisted he was not intentionally targeting people of Asian descent. However, police, including Baker, said the investigation was ongoing and the killings could still be classified as a hate crime.
The fact that Long allegedly ran the Asian massage parlors and killed half a dozen Asian women has caused a stir online and among community leaders. Nearly 3,800 incidents of anti-Asian hatred were reported between March 2020 and last month, according to Stop AAPI Hate, a national coalition documenting discrimination during the pandemic.
During a press conference Wednesday, Baker appeared to downplay Long’s alleged actions, telling reporters that the 21-year-old attributed the crimes to his sexual addiction problems. Baker said Long directed the spas to “eliminate this temptation.”
Baker’s adopted brother, Anthony Baker, is a judge at the Georgia High Court and, according to a profile published in January, was born in Vietnam to a woman who had married an American soldier.
– with reports from Maxwell Tani, Noor Ibrahim and Blake Montgomery