Police arrested a Colorado man on hate crime charges after he was seen on a TikTok video making “racist and homophobic” comments at an In-N-Out Burger on Christmas Eve in California.
Two friends of Asian descent were recording a video of themselves when Jordan Krah, 40, approached them “unprovoked” and caused them to fear for their safety, according to a news release from San Ramon police Monday.
Arine Kim, 20, told USA TODAY that she was filming her friend’s reaction to the food when a man approached them.
In the nearly three-minute edited video, Kim can be seen passing her friend a fry when the voice of a man addresses the friends and says several slurs. Kim appears to be shocked as her friend laughs uncomfortably.
“I was taken aback,” Kim said in recalling the incident.
Later, the man can be heard asking the friends if they are “Japanese or Korean” and then states: “You’re Kim Jong Un’s boyfriend, huh?” The man makes a crude statement about “gay sex.”
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As Kim’s friend engages the man with humor, Kim tells her friend to stop, fearful of escalating the situation.
“Normally I could spit in your face,” the man says. The man then calls himself a “slave master” and can be heard using another slur. “See you outside in a minute,” the man can be heard saying.
Another person can be heard approaching the friends to ask if they are OK. Kim can be heard expressing concerns about being assaulted or having a gun pulled on them.
“He was standing outside the restaurant staring at us through the window for about 10 minutes. And he didn’t stop staring,” she recalled.
Kim said she and her friend waited inside the restaurant until closing and asked an employee to watch them walk to their car.
The video of the encounter spread widely on social media, prompting an investigation, police said.
Krah also allegedly targeted other Asian Americans in the East Bay the following day, ABC-7 reported. Abigail Halili and her siblings told the outlet a man yelled at them from his car Christmas morning and made racist comments in nearby Danville, California.
After an investigation, Krah, of Denver, was arrested Monday and booked at the Martinez Detention Facility on two counts of committing a hate crime.
The San Ramon Police Department was expected to file the case with the Contra Costa County District Attorney’s Office this week, police spokesperson Tami Williams said.
Krah also faces first-degree assault charges related to a November arrest in Denver, according to the Denver District Attorney’s Office.
Krah could not immediately be reached for comment. In-N-Out Burger did not respond to a request for comment.
San Ramon is a city of nearly 90,000 people about 30 miles east of San Francisco. The population is nearly 48% Asian and 39% white, according to the U.S. Census Bureau.
The incident comes amid a surge of targeted attacks toward Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders since the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic, spurring nationwide protests and rallies to “stop AAPI hate.”
Last year, the advocacy group Stop AAPI Hate reported more than 6,000 hate incidents. A survey of U.S. cities by the Center for the Study of Hate & Extremism at the California State University, San Bernardino, found a 224% rise in anti-Asian crimes from 2020 to 2021.
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In recent days, Kim said she has rarely left her house, concerned that someone who is critical of her speaking out about the incident may cause her harm. But on Monday night, she and her friend returned to In-N-Out, and a woman who had seen their story bought their food.
“I just wanted to be able to go back and eat my food,” Kim said. “I’m allowed to eat out in public without being harassed.”
Kim said some people online have told her the incident was “not that big of a deal” and to “go cry about it.” But most people have been “positive,” and many have shared their own similar experiences, she said. Some have even started making their own TikTok videos to discuss the experiences.
Kim, whose parents immigrated to the U.S. from Korea, said she grew up enduring racist slurs from neighbors and classmates and was taught to hate her Asian identity.
“It was almost the bane of my existence because people would make fun of me about everything – about the food I ate, about the music that I would listen to, about my parents’ accents,” she said. “I just wanted to be American so bad.”
Kim said she hopes people who read about the incident better understand the impact of their words in the future.
“This has been a sobering moment not only for myself but for other people around the U.S.,” Kim said. She added: “This is a real problem that’s affecting people of color all over.”
