The mother of Jasper Wu, the 23-month-old toddler who was killed by a stray bullet last week in Oakland, California, is pleading for help in finding those responsible for his death.
“If anyone has any information, please call authorities,” the mother, Cherry An, told NBC Bay Area this week. “I want everybody’s help to help find the killer.”
An, in her first public comments since the shooting, also thanked the community for its support.
Jasper was asleep in his car seat as An was driving when a bullet from a shootout struck the family’s car last Saturday.
The family was heading from San Francisco to their home in Fremont. Jasper was rushed to the University of California San Francisco Benioff Children’s Hospital, where he was pronounced dead.
There are currently no suspects, police said.
An has lived in the U.S. for 10 years, while Jasper’s father, Jihao Wu, has worked and lived in China. Wu never met his son, because of the U.S.’s travel ban on more than 30 countries during the pandemic.
On Monday, when the U.S. lifted the ban, Wu flew from Shanghai.
As of Thursday, a GoFundMe page has raised nearly $200,000 to support the family.
The story has gained traction on the Chinese social media app WeChat, and local Asian American groups are also calling for donations to the family.
Yang Shao, vice mayor of Fremont, which is nearly 60 percent Asian, according to the census, visited An. “She was overwhelmed by the tragedy,” Shao told The East Bay Times. “Basically, she did not know how to react, how to respond to the sudden tragedy.”
Carl Chan, the president of the Oakland Chinatown Chamber of Commerce, has called for greater measures to prevent violence in Oakland in the wake of Jasper’s death.
“It’s not acceptable to see this level of violence, not only in the Asian American community but throughout Oakland,” he previously told The East Bay Times.