Business and civil rights groups in California are demanding action after a recent surge of xenophobic violence against Asian Americans in the San Francisco Bay Area left one person dead and others badly injured.
The brazen, mostly daylight assaults have rattled nerves in communities ahead of Friday’s Lunar New Year holiday.
Just last week in San Jose, a 64-year-old grandmother was assaulted and robbed of cash she’d just withdrawn from an ATM for Lunar New Year gifts.
Surveillance cameras have captured many of the attacks, including one against a 91-year-old man in Oakland’s Chinatown, who was hospitalized with serious injuries after being shoved to the ground by a man who walked up behind him.
In January, a 52-year-old Asian American woman was shot in the head with a flare gun, also in Chinatown.
Later in the month, 84-year-old Vicha Ratanapakdee was going for a morning walk in his San Francisco neighborhood. Surveillance cameras captured a man running at him full speed and smashing his frail body to the pavement. Ratanapakdee died of his injuries two days later. A 19-year-old man has been charged with murder and elder abuse.
The brazen, mostly daylight assaults have rattled nerves in communities ahead of Friday’s Lunar New Year holiday.
Just last week in San Jose, a 64-year-old grandmother was assaulted and robbed of cash she’d just withdrawn from an ATM for Lunar New Year gifts.
Surveillance cameras have captured many of the attacks, including one against a 91-year-old man in Oakland’s Chinatown, who was hospitalized with serious injuries after being shoved to the ground by a man who walked up behind him.
In January, a 52-year-old Asian American woman was shot in the head with a flare gun, also in Chinatown.
Later in the month, 84-year-old Vicha Ratanapakdee was going for a morning walk in his San Francisco neighborhood. Surveillance cameras captured a man running at him full speed and smashing his frail body to the pavement. Ratanapakdee died of his injuries two days later. A 19-year-old man has been charged with murder and elder abuse.
Those hatred crime should not be allowed in our communities!