A 50-year-old man has been charged with beating two Asian American women with a cinder block inside a West Baltimore liquor store Sunday night in a vicious attack captured by the store’s surveillance cameras, police said.
Daryl Doles has been arrested and charged with two counts each of first- and second-degree assault as well as a weapons offense for allegedly attacking the women, ages 66 and 67, inside the Wonderland Liquors shop in the city’s Upton neighborhood, where they both work.
Surveillance footage posted online by a man said he is the son of one of the two victims shows a man repeatedly striking two women inside the store with what appears to be a cinder block while they try to fend him off.
Police wrote in charging documents that one of the two women was closing the door to the business when she was approached by Doles, who was carrying the cinder block in his hand.
Footage shows a man forcing his way into the business shortly before 11 p.m. and wrestling with a woman inside the shop, eventually striking her in the head with the cinder block while he holds her down.
Another woman, identified in charging documents as the woman’s sister, tries to help her fend off the attacker, only to also be struck in the head multiple times as he continues attacking them inside the store.
Eventually, the struggle moves outside and out of the range of surveillance cameras. The camera footage picks up only brief shots of the attacker and the victims appearing in the doorway of the business before the women reappear inside the shop visibly bloody from the attack.
Police wrote in charging documents that the two women were taken to the hospital with significant injuries. Photos posted online on a GoFundMe page by the man reporting to be one woman’s son show the victims bruised and bloodied at the hospital. It adds that the two were released hours later.
“I admire the bravery and courage of these two women and am incredibly proud of them,” the page reads. “Their physical wounds will heal eventually, but the trauma from this attack will require more time.”
Attempts to reach the family member Tuesday were unsuccessful.
Police wrote in charging documents that an officer located the suspect in the 2700 block of Pennsylvania Avenue. He was later identified as Doles, who matched the description of the man in the surveillance footage and was wearing the same dark red shirt and khaki pants as the man in the footage.
Gov. Larry Hogan said Tuesday afternoon that his daughter showed him the video of the attack and that he was “outraged” at what he saw. He made reference to another Sunday attack in New York City where a woman was seen attacking an Asian woman with a hammer in the city’s Manhattan neighborhood. Hogan’s wife, Yumi, is Korean American and the governor has said previously that his family has felt the effects of anti-Asian discrimination during the pandemic.
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“It’s just another example of these violent outbursts and attacks on Asians all across the country,” Hogan said. “We had another one in New York. It was pretty hard to watch with the two elderly, older women being smashed in the head with a brick or a cinderblock.”
The violent attack on two Asian women in Baltimore comes at a time when groups across the country are reporting an increase of attacks and discrimination against the Asian community during the coronavirus pandemic.
The San Francisco nonprofit Stop AAPI Hate, for Asian American and Pacific Islander, received reports of nearly 3,300 incidents — harassment, assaults, workplace discrimination, internet trolling, shunning — against Asian Americans last year.
Hogan said the state’s new work group created to combat the rise of crimes against Asian Americans will investigate the incident alongside Maryland State Police. The work group is headed by former U.S. Attorney Robert Hur, also a Korean American who served as Maryland’s top federal prosecutor for nearly three years before announcing stepping down earlier this year.
Doles has not been charged with a hate crime and Baltimore police did not say whether the department was investigating whether he should be charged with one.
“I’ve already talked to Rob Hur ... and I’m sure we’re going to hear a lot more about this,” Hogan said. “It’s probably going to get a lot more attention.”
Baltimore Sun reporter Bryn Stole contributed to this article.