TYLER, Texas — The shootings in Atlanta, Georgia were traumatic for millions, but Danny Lieu, assistant manager at Hawaiian Nail Bar, says he isn't surprised.
"My experience with just living in America is racism is almost everywhere," he said.
He tried to wrap his mind around what would push someone to open fire at a spa.
"When I'm working here, I kind of think like, honestly, this is a pretty easy target," he said. "Everyone comes in here and they get relaxed and they're not supposed to be on high sense."
The six Asian women who were murdered in Atlanta may have had the same thought. As for their shooter Robert Long, he told investigators that there was no racial motivation for his crime, and he targeted his victims to eliminate the lewd temptation he felt towards them.
However, Lieu isn't buying it.
"Even if you're in the process of elimination, you're not going to get to be able to eliminate every nail salon. You're going to just taking lives for no reason basically," he said.
The national organization, Stop Asian-American and Pacific Islander Hate, has received 3,795 hate crime reports in the last year. 63 of those were in Texas. This includes verbal harassment, physical assault, civil rights violations, and online harassment. Take note that these crimes are self-reported and don't reflect how many actually occurred.
As of now, the Tyler Police Department tells CBS19 that there are no reported Asian hate crimes in 2021 nor in 2020.