SEATTLE — The Wing Luke Museum will get money from the city to patch up broken windows and other damage from an alleged hate crime last year.
The Seattle City Council approved the funding Tuesday afternoon to help the business, which is the only pan-Asian art and history museum in the United States. The museum will receive $100,000 combined from the city and Washington state to help with repairs.
The Seattle Police Department (SPD) said it responded to the area around 6 p.m. on Sept. 14, 2023, after receiving several 911 calls reporting a man with a sledgehammer destroying windows and shouting racial slurs.
When officers arrived, SPD said the suspect, Craig Day Milne, was still on the scene and told police, "The Chinese have been torturing [me] for years and [I have] to do something." According to police, he destroyed approximately 10 windows valued at around $100,000.
Milne was placed under arrest for a hate crime offense and first-degree malicious mischief, or property damage, according to police. His trial is set for April 24.
Stan Shikuma, co-president of the Seattle chapter of the Japanese-American Citizens League, said an after-hours event was happening inside when the vandalism occurred.
"We heard sounds of glass breaking, someone looked out and said, 'There's someone with a sledgehammer,' so staff rushed out to see what was happening," Shikuma said. "The person with the sledgehammer was just leaning up against the wall, he just had the sledgehammer in one hand and the staff was trying to talk to him."
Surveillance video captured a man walking into Canton Alley with a sledgehammer and started smashing the windows one by one.
Hanif Muid, the museum’s head of security, ran out and confronted the attacker.
“We saw a gentleman in the alley hitting Apartment Six, which is one of the exhibits with a hammer,” Muid said. “At that point, we yelled at him, 'Hey man, stop! What are you doing?’”
Muid said that’s when the man went on a racist tirade.
“He started spouting rhetoric about the Chinese ruining his life,” Muid said.
The four museum employees we spoke with last year said they believed it was a deliberate attack and they were targeted because of their race.
“It is nothing less than an act of terror,” said Joel Barraquiel Tan, executive director of Wing Luke Museum.
A new Pew Research Survey shows what happened at the Wing Luke is part of a spike in anti-Asian hate crimes across the country. Out of 7,006 Asian adults surveyed, about a third say they know another Asian person who has been threatened or attacked since the COVID-19 pandemic began.
74% of Asians born in the U.S. said they have been treated as a foreigner, including being told to go back to their home country.