Georgia investigator appeared to promote racist t-shirt

ATLANTA – A Facebook page appearing to belong to a spokesperson for a sheriff’s office in Georgia who helps investigate recent massage parlor murders promoted a t-shirt with racist language on China and the coronavirus last year.

On the post shared in March 2020, the individual invites people to get these t-shirts “while there’s some left.”

The Facebook account, owned by a “Jay Baker,” contains numerous photos of Captain Jay Baker from the Cherokee County Sheriff’s Office, including one in his uniform in front of the Sheriff’s Office. The account was deleted Wednesday evening.

The discovery of the Facebook post comes as some Asian Americans fear authorities may not view the killings, which primarily target Asian women, as hate crimes.

Mr Baker was also criticized for saying on Wednesday that the 21-year-old man accused of committing the killing had had a “bad day”.

“He had had enough and was kind of at his wit’s end and yesterday was a really bad day for him and that’s what he did,” Baker summed up at a press conference.

Before the Facebook page was taken down, dozens of people denounced the t-shirt’s racist language on Wednesday evening.

“It’s ‘jokes’ like these that dehumanize Asian Americans and lead to violence,” one person wrote.

Six of the eight victims of Tuesday’s attacks were of Asian origin, including two of the four victims who were killed in Cherokee County.

Mr Baker had not responded to requests from The Associated Press at the time of this writing, as had the sheriff’s office.

– Par R.J. Rico, The Associated Press

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