Biden announces new actions to combat anti-Asian violence
30 March 2021
President Biden announced a slate of new actions Tuesday aimed at addressing the nation's rise in anti-Asian violence.
Why it matters: The move comes nearly two weeks after deadly shootings that left eight dead, including six Asian women, and after a year of Asian American Pacific Islander (AAPI) communities' calls for help from the government.
Details: The new actions include a Department of Justice cross-agency initiative focused on responding to hate crimes.
- The DOJ will initiate community outreach to address gaps in hate crimes reporting while the FBI will publish a new interactive hate crime page dedicated to anti-Asian hate crimes. The DOJ also updated its hate crimes website accessible in Chinese, Korean, Tagalog and Vietnamese.
- The FBI will work to improve data collection and prior reporting systems, and hold nationwide civil rights training events with state and local law enforcement on recognizing anti-Asian bias — an issue the community has spoken out about.
The administration will allocate$49.5 million from the American Rescue Plan to a new grant program for community-based, "culturally specific" services for survivors of domestic violence and sexual assault, particularly those who face barriers like language access.
A new COVID-19 Equity Task Force will work to address and end xenophobia against Asian Americans. It will make recommendations to the president to "eliminate health and social disparities" that result in higher rates of infections and deaths, especially for groups like Pacific Islanders and Native Hawaiians.
- A subcommittee will provide policy guidance on the federal government's response to anti-Asian xenophobia and bias.
- In addition, the National Science foundation will be tasked with conducting "critical research" to understand and end discrimination against AAPIs.
The White House will also reinstate its Initiative on Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders, which Asian American groups had advocated for. It will focus on coordinating across federal agencies to combat anti-Asian bias, "especially anti-Asian violence at the intersection of gender-based violence."
The backdrop: The Center for the Study of Hate and Extremism at California State University found that anti-Asian hate crimes reported to police in America's largest cities jumped nearly 150% in 2020.
Go deeper:
Transcripts show George Floyd told police "I can't breathe" over 20 times
Section2Newly released transcripts of bodycam footage from the Minneapolis Police Department show that George Floyd told officers he could not breathe more than 20 times in the moments leading up to his death.
Why it matters: Floyd's killing sparked a national wave of Black Lives Matter protests and an ongoing reckoning over systemic racism in the United States. The transcripts "offer one the most thorough and dramatic accounts" before Floyd's death, The New York Times writes.
The state of play: The transcripts were released as former officer Thomas Lane seeks to have the charges that he aided in Floyd's death thrown out in court, per the Times. He is one of four officers who have been charged.
- The filings also include a 60-page transcript of an interview with Lane. He said he "felt maybe that something was going on" when asked if he believed that Floyd was having a medical emergency at the time.
What the transcripts say:
- Floyd told the officers he was claustrophobic as they tried to get him into the squad car.
- The transcripts also show Floyd saying, "Momma, I love you. Tell my kids I love them. I'm dead."
- Former officer Derek Chauvin, who had his knee on Floyd's neck for over eight minutes, told Floyd, "Then stop talking, stop yelling, it takes a heck of a lot of oxygen to talk."
Read the transcripts via DocumentCloud.