OAKLAND — A 46-year-old man facing charges in connection with two separate assaults will face an additional hate-crime charge, the Alameda County District Attorney’s Office announced Tuesday.
At a press conference, District Attorney Pamela Price said Aqweel Akbar Khan, who had been charged with a hate crime in connection with an August 2021 attack against a woman in a Fremont park, would also face a new hate-crime charge based on information added Tuesday.
The new charge, filed on behalf of an African-American man, 45-year-old Cory Brown, is another hate-crime charge based on an assault by Khan late last year.
“We believe that based on the evidence that Mr. Brown’s assault was also racially motivated,” Price said in part.
“It should have been charged as such by my predecessor. She did not do so, but we are here to right a great wrong as it has been found in this community.”
Brown is the neighbor whom Khan injured by repeatedly ramming his vehicle into him on Dec. 6, 2021, in the parking lot of their shared Fremont Boulevard apartment complex.
“The message that we have for the residents of Alameda County is that hate crime will not be tolerated in this county, regardless of your ethnicity or your zip code,” Price said. “Those two things should not matter or make a difference whether you face justice if you are engaged in racially motivated conduct that results in serious bodily injury to a resident in this county.
With help from a Fremont police public information officer, Price showed surveillance-camera video footage of the Dec. 6 assault, warning viewers that it was “deeply disturbing.”
“When the members of my team saw this video and we looked at the facts in this case, as we are looking at the facts of every case that is pending that comes before us, we elected to amend the information,” Price said.
“The case was on for a hearing today and we postponed that matter. so that we could in fact address the inequity that we observed in the filing and the charging of this.”
Price said she had no explanation for the newly fired charge’s absence from the case as filed by previous District Attorney Nancy O’Malley.
Price told reporters that prior exchanges between the two had included Khan threatening and using racial slurs against Brown, as well as vandalizing Brown’s car with similar slurs.
According to charging documents filed with the district attorney’s office last year, Fremont police contacted Brown around 6:30 p.m. on Nov. 29, 2021, for a report of an assault. Brown told police that after returning from travel, he had showered at home and heard Khan’s footfalls from the apartment above his own.
Soon after, Brown took a walk from his apartment to a nearby store, where he saw Khan parked in a car. Brown then said that Khan yelled a racial slur at him and tried to run him over, but Brown managed to escape serious injury by dodging into bushes. Khan then drove away along Fremont Boulevard.
Price added that Brown was still traumatized by the incidents, but “is very grateful that the district attorney that he says he voted for is actually doing her job. However he has a civil matter pending, and so his ability to speak is somewhat limited.”
When asked about the case’s reopening, Price said “we came into this office with a commitment to review cases as appropriate, cases that had been sent over,” acknowledging a recently released change in “charging policy that allows this office to look at other cases being brought to us.”
That policy, announced last week and expected to be complete by month’s end, is generally intended to take advantage of charging and plea negotiations approaches, limiting typical sentences those charged. However, it would allow exceptions for certain circumstances, including human trafficking, hate crimes, child or elder abuse and crimes that cause “extensive” physical injury.
“When we looked at the case, Fremont police were very adamant that we look at this case and ensure that it was properly charged,” Price said in part.
“We did our due diligence and we determined that it was imperative that we add one special allegation to Mr. Brown’s case.”
Khan was in custody without bail at Santa Rita Jail, and faces a hearing April 14 at Dublin’s East County Hall of Justice, according to a county records check Tuesday evening.
Contact George Kelly at 408-859-5180.
Source: www.mercurynews.com