Hispanic husband, victim of Atlanta, “police handcuffed”

While the Atlanta shootings raised the issue of racial discrimination in the United States, there is controversy that there was another act of discrimination in the investigation process. Allegedly, the victim’s Hispanic husband, who was killed in the shooting, was handcuffed and detained for more than four hours.

According to the New York Times (NYT) on the 21st (local time), Mario Gonzalez visited the’Young’s Asian Massage’ with his wife Delaina Yaun after finishing work. Each of them was guided to a different room, and he soon heard the sound of a shooting.

The massage shop they visited was the first crime site for Robert Aaron Long, 21, who was responsible for the Atlanta shootings. Four people were killed in the shootings here on the 16th, including Gonzalez’s wife, Yaun.

Gonzalez said in an interview with the Spanish media’Mundo Hispanico’, “I heard gunshots, but I was too afraid.”

Gonzalez, who had been evacuated for a while, immediately tried to check his wife’s life or death, but could not. Upon arrival at the scene, Cherokee County deputy sheriffs arrested him and imprisoned him in handcuffs for about four hours. He told the situation at the time, “I asked for my wife’s whereabouts several times and appealed, but I couldn’t even hear an answer.”

Gonzalez said, “They knew I was the victim’s husband, but they treated it that way,” said Gonzalez. “I don’t know if that’s because I’m Mexican.” Gonzalez’s nephew, Jessica Gonzalez, told The Daily Mail: “At the time, the only person in handcuffs was my uncle. It was racist,” he criticized.

In this regard, the Cherokee County Sheriff’s Office did not respond to NYT’s request for clarification.

Meanwhile, local criticism continues against a spokesman for the Cherokee County Sheriff’s Office, who was controversial by referring to the shooter as “a bad day for him” in the early days of the investigation. On the world’s largest online petition site’change.org’, a petition requesting the dismissal of the sheriff Jay Baker, and as of the 22nd, more than 83,000 people have signed it.

Reporter Kim Hong-beom [email protected]