Sultan man charged with hate crime for robberies of Asian-owned spas
MARYSVILLE — When a man walked into Sunrise Massage Spa on a June afternoon, the manager welcomed him with a warm smile from behind the counter, over a saucer filled with Dubble Bubble, in a room painted a dusty shade of pink.
She asked the man if he would like a massage. She couldn’t make out his response, she told The Daily Herald, because English is not her first language. The man lunged over the dish of bubble gum and knocked the woman’s cell phone out of her hands. He flashed what looked like a weapon and demanded money, the woman said. He shoved her, took cash and ran back to his car parked at the 7-Eleven next door. Alone in her spa with a customer in the back, the manager panicked.
“It is a public place,” she later told The Daily Herald, “so I had always felt pretty safe here.”
She did not call police until three days later, when a friend urged her to do so.
https://www.heraldnet.com/news/sultan-man-charged-with-hate-crime-for-robberies-of-asian-owned-spas/
