HomeChinese AmericanShop owner pepper sprayed by man who yelled "Covid-19"
Don't Be Fooled by Gift Card Scams

Shop owner pepper sprayed by man who yelled “Covid-19”

By Louis Chan & Raymond Chong, AsAmNews Staff Writers

(Updated: This story has been updated with additional information from a police report obtained by AsAmNews)

A tea shop owner in the Dupont Circle neighborhood of Washington, DC is recovering from burns after a stranger entered his shop this morning, screamed “Chinese tea” and “Covid-19” and then pepper sprayed him.

“I believe it was racially motivated,” victim Zhang Yunhan told Raymond Chong of AsAmNews. “I cannot imagine another angle of looking at it.”

AsAmNews has confirmed with the Washington, DC Metropolitan Police Department that the incident is being classified as “anti-Asian.”

It happened at around 9:30 this morning. You can hear Zhang ask the man several times to “go away right now,” but the suspect continues to approach.

At one point, Zhang holds up his pepper spray , according to the police report, in an attempt to scare the suspect away.

Instead, the suspect pulled out his own pepper spray and fired it in the direction of Zhang, before escaping.

Zhang used his arm as a shield and tries to duck behind the counter. He said the burning lasted several hours.

Zhang said he opened his shop, Valley Brook Tea, just in February. He serves traditional Chinese tea, not boba. The pandemic forced him to close one month later until early May. He says since then he’s experienced a lot of verbal and physical harassment on a weekly basis. The verbal harassment, he says, almost always has to do with the “Chinese virus.”

“I do not like posting about these incidences of racism/harassment because I do not want my store to be defined by it,” he told Chong of AsAmNews. “I don’t want our business to be defined as the Chinese store that gets bullied.”

He said police arrived within minutes. An investigator took the video and someone from the Asian Liaison office also arrived.

Zhang moved from China to the US in 2009 to study.

“Most people in the neighborhood are nice, but we started to see more action after Covid,” Zhang said. “We are used to it. I see it like car accidents. Sometimes bad things happen.”

AsAmNews has Asian America in its heart. We’re an all-volunteer effort of dedicated staff and interns. Check out our new Instagram account. Go to our Twitter feed and Facebook page for more content. Please consider interning, joining our staff, or submitting a story.

1 COMMENT

LEAVE A REPLY

Please enter your comment!
Please enter your name here

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.

Latest

Worth the Time

Must Read

Regular Features

Latest

Discover more from AsAmNews

Subscribe now to keep reading and get access to the full archive.

Continue reading