Jose Gomez III indictment: Man sentenced to 25 years in prison for stabbing Asian family in Texas Sam's Club attack

On Thursday, August 4, 2022, Sam's Club Warehouse attacker Jose Gomez III was sentenced to 25 years of imprisonment. The 21-year-old assailant from Midland, Texas pleaded guilty to assaulting an Asian family with a knife in March 2020.

The court concluded that the attack was racially motivated as Jose Gomez III believed that the Chinese were responsible for the Covid-19 global pandemic. Jose Gomez III had attacked an Asian man and his two young children with knives, along with a Sam's Club Warehouse employee, with intentions of inflicting fatal injuries.

In a statement released on Thursday, the assistant attorney general for the Justice Department’s Civil Rights Division, Kristen Clarke, said:

"Pandemic-driven and racially-motivated acts of violence are deplorable crimes, and the Justice Department stands ready to use our hate crimes laws to hold perpetrators accountable."

She labeled Gomez's violent actions as a 'hate crime' and further said:

"Hate crimes targeting Asian Americans have spiked during the pandemic and must be confronted. All people deserve to feel safe and secure living in their communities, regardless of race, color or national origin."

According to prosecutors, Jose Gomez admitted to wanting to fatally harm a six-year-old child, one of the victims of hate crime.

Special Agent in Charge Jeffery R. Downey of the FBI's El Paso Field Office firmly stated that the attack at Sam's Club did not represent the ethos of West Texas. He said:

"Mr. Gomez’s cowardly and racially motivated actions do not represent our West Texas community. It is our hope today’s sentence will help the victims with the healing process. Rest assured, the FBI and our law enforcement partners will aggressively pursue anyone who commits these violent acts to ensure the civil rights of all Americans are protected."

Apart from federal charges, Jose Gomez III is also facing pending state charges for three counts of attempted capital murder and one count of aggravated assault, as reported by KWES-TV.

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Who is Jose Gomez III? Texas Sam's Club attacker condemned for his act of racial violence

On March 14, 2020, just months after the U.S. went into lockdown to counter the global Covid-19 pandemic, Jose Gomez III was arrested for his violent behavior against an Asian family he believed to be Chinese, and an employee of Sam's Club Warehouse in Texas.

According to police reports, he had followed the family into the store, and when the opportunity presented itself, he slashed open the face of the father with a serrated steak knife. A few minutes later, he returned with an eight-inch knife and attacked a six-year-old child with it, with the intention of killing the child.

He was also charged with stabbing an employee who had tried to intervene.

According to a press release by the United States Department of Justice, Gomez felt threatened by their presence because they were '' from the country who started spreading that disease (Covid 19) around."

America, in the midst of the Coronavirus pandemic, has witnessed a growing hatred of Asian and Asian-American communities. In 2021, a number of rallies and protests were held against the targeted harassment and violence against Asians. The #StopAsianHate movements, spearheaded by the AAPI community, demanded justice for the victims of racially motivated hatred and sought to address the surge in racial discrimination in the U.S.