Content Note: This article contains mentions of racism and racially motivated violence

Three teenage boys were arrested in Doddington yesterday (30/09) in connection with racially aggravated crimes committed in August and September in the Cambridge.

The suspects, a 15-year-old boy, a 16-year old boy and a 17-year-old boy, were arrested following crimes of robbery, assault, racial assault, grievous bodily harm and theft.

They are currently being held at Thorpe Wood Police Station in Peterborough, where they remain.

Adam Gallop, the police area commander for the south of Cambridge, said, “the arrests this morning follow an extensive and thorough investigation into a series of disgraceful racially motivated crime towards members of our community.”

“We believe these incidents to be isolated to a specific group of people and we hope these arrests send a clear message that these crimes will not be tolerated in our county.”

The incidents follow several racially aggravated crimes this summer, including the racial assault of Yuanzhao Zhang, a Cambridge alumnus, on 18/09.

Following the assault, Zhang set up a website to highlight the increasing number of anti-Asian racial hate crimes in Cambridge, and received 30 responses to his incidents report form, which encouraged members of Cambridge’s Asian community to report any incidents of hate.

Yinsey Wang, a Lucy Cavendish alumnus, has co-founded Voice ESEA, an organisation dedicated to combating anti-Asian hate crimes, including by collecting data from local police forces about rates of racially aggravated crimes. In 2020, Cambridgeshire Police reported 23 incidents of such crimes.