One of the targets in a Tuesday night shooting in Santa Clarita, California, believes he and his sister were targeted because of the flag that was draped over their vehicle, KCBS-TV reported.
A shooter in another vehicle fired at least eight bullets into Harry Nalbandyan's vehicle on the 14 Freeway, and Nalbandyan thinks it was because he had an Armenian flag on his truck to commemorate the anniversary of the Armenian Genocide.
Nalbandyan said he and his sister were driving home from their uncle's birthday party late Tuesday.
A silver Honda CR-V pulled up close behind Nalbandyan's vehicle, and began flashing its lights. Nalbandyan said he tried to get out of the vehicle's way so it could go around.
The driver of the Honda then pulled up beside Nalbandyan's truck, rolled down the window, and began firing into the vehicle.
Nalbandyan slammed the breaks, and the shooter continued to drive down the highway. Police are still seeking the suspect, described as a man in his 20s or 30s with short, curly hair.
The truck was damaged by the bullets, with windows shot out and some bullets lodged in the seat and head rest, KCBS reported. Nalbandyan said he feels fortunate neither he nor his 17-year-old sister were killed.
"Luckily we're alive," Nalbandyan told KCBS. "We ducked down, I hit the brakes hard, and we went off. [A bullet] hit my shoulder, then hit underneath my neck, then came out of the passenger window."
Starting in 1915, about 1.2 million Armenians were rounded up and killed by the Ottoman Turkish government. Armenians mark the start of the genocide as April 24, 1915, when several hundred Armenians were arrested and later executed.
The genocide is not formally recognized by Turkey or by the United States, although President Donald Trump issued a statement this year calling it "one of the worst mass atrocities of the 20th century," according to the Los Angeles Times.
In Turkey, it is a crime to raise the issue of the genocide. While Armenians in the United States, particularly the large community in Southern California, want the United States to formally condemn the genocide, the United States has declined to do so in order to protect relations with Turkey.
Turkish revolutionaries, known as the Young Turks, allied with Germany in World War I in 1914. They were defeated by Russian forces, and blamed Armenian nationals for siding with the Russians in the conflict. Armenians began to be viewed as a threat to the Turkish state, and were subject to deportation, arrest and mass execution.
