On Monday, May 16, the Dallas Police Department arrested Jeremy Theron Smith, 36, charging him with three counts of aggravated assault with a deadly weapon in connection to a previously reported salon shooting.
Police accuse Smith of being responsible for the May 11 salon shooting of three women at a hair salon in the Asian Trade District, colloquially known as the city’s Koreatown.
The shooting is the third attack on an Asian-owned business in Dallas in about a month. Two drive-by shootings occurred previously, the first on April 2 in the same strip mall as the hair salon, the second on May 10 in east Oak Cliff. No one sustained any injury in either of these two attacks.
Following Smith’s arrest, the F.B.I. announced the opening of a federal investigation. Dallas police are also working back on the two earlier shootings to determine whether Smith may have committed those crimes.
News of a federal investigation looking at if the attack was racially motivated comes as details emerge from an arrest warrant affidavit obtained by the Dallas Morning News.
According to the affidavit, Smith’s girlfriend informed Dallas police that Smith suffers from delusions about people of Asian descent.
She told them that “he begins having delusions that the Asian mob is after him or attempting to harm him” whenever he happens to be around someone Asian-American.
The affidavit mentions that these delusions began following a motor vehicle accident Smith was involved in with an Asian male two years ago. After that, Smith supposedly started having panic attacks whenever around someone of Asian descent.
Dallas Police have said witnesses reported a red, burgundy, or maroon minivan at or near all three shootings sites.
A surveillance camera captured video footage of the hair salon shooter entering the minivan, and an eyewitness managed to record part of the license plate.
This information led Dallas Police to identify Smith as a suspect. Law enforcement surveilled Smith before pulling his red minivan over in DeSoto.
He admitted to owning the van and being in the vicinity of the hair salon the day of the shooting.
The women shot on May 11 at the hair salon were all taken to local hospitals for treatment. They had no life-threatening injuries and are all expected to recover fully.
