California man sentenced for driving through Stop Asian Hate rally
By Carl Samson
The man who disrupted a Stop Asian Hate rally in Diamond Bar, California, in 2021 has been sentenced to a year in federal prison.
Key points:
- Steve Lee Dominguez, 58, yelled anti-Asian slurs and drove through a crowd of peaceful protesters at the rally on March 21, 2021.
- He pleaded guilty to one count of bias-motivated interference with federally protected activities last October.
The details:
- Dominguez yelled “Go back to China!” and other racial slurs — including the N-word — at the protesters, who gathered at the intersection of Diamond Bar Boulevard and Grand Avenue to denounce anti-Asian hate crimes. The event came five days after the Atlanta-area spa shootings.
- Driving a black Honda Civic, Dominguez ran a red light, drove through the intersection’s crosswalk, made an illegal U-turn and broke the route of about a dozen protesters, including a 9-year-old child whom he narrowly hit. Fortunately, no injuries were reported.
- The Diamond Bar resident subsequently called the police and falsely reported that the protesters were blocking the street. He said he was forced to run the red light “because they were about to trample my car.”
- Dominguez was arrested on May 12, 2022, and initially charged with two counts of bias-motivated interference with federally protected activities. On Oct. 26, 2023, he pleaded guilty to one count of the charge.
- The defendant was sentenced to 12 months in federal prison on Monday. In a statement, U.S. Attorney Martin Estrada said that while differences of opinion constitute a healthy democracy, “we cannot allow people to commit acts of violence against those with whom they disagree.”
- The FBI investigated the case. Mehtab Syed, acting assistant director in charge of the FBI’s Los Angeles office, said the sentence represents the agency’s “commitment to ensuring that constitutionally protected rights are not violated and those who deny them will be held accountable.”
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