Ke Chieh Meng Riverside California woman, 64, stabbed to death by transient, Darlene Stephanie Montoya. Second attack by transient in less than a week.
An Asian woman was stabbed to death while walking her dogs in California in a random attack over the weekend according to reports.
Ke Chieh Meng, 64, was out with her two small dogs in Riverside around 7:30 a.m. Saturday when she was stabbed multiple times in the stomach and left on the ground bleeding according to the Riverside Police Dept.
Officers responding to the scene found her on the ground and transported Meng to a local hospital, where the woman was pronounced dead.
Meng’s suspected attacker, Darlene Stephanie Montoya, 23, was identified by police as a transient. Montoya of Monterey Park in Los Angeles County was arrested near the scene after fleeing and charged in what police described as a ‘completely random’ attack.
‘There was nothing to suggest that the victim was attacked due to her ethnicity,’ Riverside Police Department spokesman Ryan Railsback told the nypost.
Asian hate crime?
‘We’re going to try to research [the suspect’s] drug-abuse history and her mental-health history,’ Railsback said, adding that cops are nonetheless ‘not closing the door on anything.’
Montoya was booked at the Robert Presley Detention Center on suspicion of murder and also charged with being under the influence of a controlled substance and ordered held without bail, CNN reported.
Montoya had last been arrested on Tuesday, March 30 and charged with assault with a deadly weapon after allegedly attacking a woman with a skateboard near a local shopping center but was freed without bail due to COVID-19 restrictions.
Railsback said the victim in that case was a white woman according to KTLA-TV.
Meng’s death came as the US has been roiled by a string of random attacks against Asian Americans.
Many believe that the hate crimes have been fueled by the fact that the coronavirus originated in China, prompting perpetrators to target random Asian-Americans as scapegoats.
