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Claire Hardwick, USA TODAY
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.
“My friend and I were filming his reaction to my in-n-out order when this happened…” TikTok user Arine Kim wrote in the caption of the viral video.
In the nearly three-minute edited video, Kim can be seen passing her friend a fry when the voice of a man addresses the two friends and says several slurs. Kim appears to be shocked as her friend laughs uncomfortably.
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.
“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.
“Dude, that genuinely never happened to me before,” Kim’s friend says.
Kim can be heard expressing concerns about being assaulted or having a gun pulled on them.
The video of the encounter spread widely on social media, prompting an investigation, police said.
Krah also targeted other Asian Americans in the East Bay on Christmas Day, ABC-7 reported. Abigail Halili and her siblings told the outlet a man yelled at them from his car 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, according to spokesperson Tami Williams.
Danville police did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Krah and Kim could not immediately be reached for comment. In-N-Out Burger did not respond to a request for comment.
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.
“Making it seem like not a big deal — I think a lot of Asian people in general do that,” Kim told ABC-7 in a sit-down interview after the incident. “I want to bring more awareness to this, and I want other people to realize how bad it is.”
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.
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