Police disturbed by crimes targeting Asian-American business owners

Police are investigating the latest home invasion that involves an Asian-American business owner.  There has been a string of similar crimes against Asian business owners in the Philadelphia suburbs in recent years.  Now Radnor police are trying to get to the bottom of the latest attack.

Acting Radnor Police Lt. Andy Block said on Wednesday night a little before midnight, a family — including the father who is a dentist — returning home was confronted by three criminals with handguns.”They rounded up the wife and the daughter and they bound them: they tied them with wire ties in the kitchen and room by room ransacked the residence looking for cash and valuables,” said Block. “They did locate the cash in the safe.  One of the family members under duress was told to open the safe.”Block said police suspect the family was targeted because they are Asian-American.  He says criminals target Asian business owners who have a reputation for taking cash home at night, instead of using a bank night deposit drop.  “There’s been an uptick in this kind of crime in the region in the past several months where Asian household are targeted,” said Block.  “Sometimes it’s perpetrators committing these crimes in a gang-like organization so it may come back that there’s only one of the three in ours or the five in Haverford’s that had common knowledge of both crimes.”Block said he advises business owners to report suspicious activity, and to stagger their route to and from work as well the times they travel.