SACRAMENTO, California—In another incident of hate crime in the United States of America, a Sikh man working as a clerk in store was reportedly attacked by a white man named John Crain who mistaken him as a Muslim. The incident took place on February 13 in which the assailant John Crain threw the hot coffee on the face of Sikh man and punched in his face.
Sources have revealed that the incident followed a verbal confrontation when the assailant John Crain attempted to leave without paying for the cup of coffee from his store. In the CCTV footage, the Sikh man could be seen confronting John Crain at the front door before being attacked.
The victim suffered injuries from the hot coffee, as well as a contusion on his face, police said.
It is learnt that the Police rounded up John Crain on February 14 after getting informed of another assault in the area and found a suspect walking away matching the description of the man from the earlier incident.
During interrogation, Crain admitted to the officers that he had assaulted the clerk during the previous night’s incident.
He told the police that he hated Muslims and attacked the Sikh clerk because he believed he’s Muslim. He was later booked into Yuba County Jail for theft, assault and hate crimes charges.
Meanwhile, the Council on American-Islamic Relations and its allies from the Sikh community condemned the attack.
“We condemn this attack on an individual because of his faith. This hate crime represents yet another attack on our Sikh brothers and sisters fuelled by Islamophobia and those emboldened by this administration’s xenophobic policies and sentiments,” CAIR-SV’s Civil Rights Attorney Saad Sweilem said in a statement while adding that they welcome the hate crime charges and encourage law enforcement to continue to take these clear incidents of bias seriously.