Advocates for the Asian community in North Texas are again calling for Allen's shooting to be classified as a hate crime

A year after the tragic shooting in Allen, advocates for the Asian American community are still calling on Texas authorities to address rising gun violence and label the shooting a hate crime.

Half of the victims killed in the Allen Premium Outlets shooting were Asian, including 26-year-old Aishwarya Thatikonda, who immigrated from India, and the Korean-American Cho family, whose six-year-old son William was the only surviving member.

The shooter, Mauricio Garcia, had previously shown signs of extremist ideology through social media posts and neo-Nazi tattoos.

On Monday, eight advocacy groups released a joint statement on the one-year anniversary of the shooting.

“Although authorities determined that the shooter espoused neo-Nazi ideology and targeted a location with a large AAPI population, Texas leaders failed to acknowledge the role of racism and refused to pass laws that would prevent further gun violence,” it said in the statement.

The groups – including Asian Texans for Justice and the Dallas Asian American Historical Society – are calling on Texas leaders to designate the shooting as a hate crime, continue to invest in community violence prevention and reintroduce legislation next session, to raise the legal age to buy a semi-automatic weapon to 21 after failed attempts last year.

Christina Hahn of Asian Texans for Justice helped organize a memorial service just days after the shooting. She said it hit her personally because of her close ties to the victims.

“It's just the simple fact that they were people we knew,” Hahn said. “This wasn’t a random person. I could trace my connection to these people to two or three degrees.”

Since the shooting, efforts have continued to investigate the incident as a hate crime. Last fall, the South Asian American Voter Empowerment of Texas Education Fund (SAAVETXEF) hosted a forum on hate crimes. Chanda Pabhoo, executive director of the organization, said these discussions are ongoing.

“We're meeting with law enforcement and really trying to understand what the process is because those are some of the things our community wants to know,” Pabhoo said.

SAAVETXEF hosted a memorial event in Allen on Sunday in conjunction with Moms Demand Action, a gun control advocacy group.

Stephanie Drenka, executive director of the Dallas Asian American Historical Society, said Allen's shooting was a result of rising anti-Asian hate during the COVID-19 pandemic. Similar shootings also followed, including one in 2022 in Dallas' Koreatown and the Atlanta spa shooting in 2021, which was ultimately investigated as a hate crime.

“It's just this ever-worsening wave of violence and attacks against our community that we don't really have a chance to recover from before there's a headline or news that something else is happening,” Drenka told KERA.

In the days following the Allen shooting, the Texas Department of Public Safety announced it was taking over the investigation. At the time, DPS regional director Hank Sibley told reporters he did not believe the shooter was motivated by hate.

“It looks to me like he was targeting the location rather than a specific group of people,” Sibley said at a news conference.

Drenka said Sibley's statement still bothers her.

“This location was likely targeted based on demographics,” Drenka said. “So the shooting of the victims indiscriminately was a side effect of the fact that the shooter chose that location knowing he would likely hurt and kill people of color.”

According to a 2022 Census estimate, about 20% of residents in Allen are Asian Americans, compared to 5.7% in Texas overall.

Texas DPS did not respond to a request for comment on the status of the ongoing investigation or any new information. The department also did not respond to KERA's previous request for comment on Garcia's displays of extremist ideology in applications for a security guard license.

Drenka said the shooting of Allen and the subsequent law enforcement response also highlighted the challenges facing Asian American communities in North Texas. She said she is still frustrated by the lack of support.

“I think the shooting has brought community organizations closer together and we've had the opportunity to work together throughout the year, which has been really encouraging,” Drenka said, “but it's still frustrating in relation to that “There was hardly any reach on the leadership of the city.” The intention was to prevent something like that from happening again.

Pablo Arauz Peña is KERA's growth and infrastructure reporter. Do you have a tip? Send Pablo an email at [email protected]. You can follow him on X @pabloaarauz.

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