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New York Police investigate ‘horrific attack’ that leaves 61-year-old Asian man in critical condition Friday night was race motivated.
The attack took place around 8:30 p.m. when a man punched the victim from behind. “knocking him down“in East Harlem, police said on Saturday.
Posted surveillance videos by the New York Police Department’s Hate Crimes Task Force, which is also investigating the incident, shows the man repeatedly hitting the victim’s head while on the ground.
Emergency medical personnel took the man, who has not been identified, to a local hospital, police said.
No arrests took place on Saturday afternoon.
Although authorities have not determined whether the victim was targeted because of his race, the incident comes amid a wave of racially-motivated attacks against Asian Americans across the country, including one in New York which was filmed and sparked widespread outrage last month.
Vilma Kari, 65, of Filipino descent, was on her way to church on the morning of March 29 when she was attacked on West 43rd Street between 8th and 9th Avenues in Manhattan’s Hell’s Kitchen neighborhood, reported the police.
Police released video showing a man hitting the victim in the stomach, causing him to fall to the ground. The man then stomped on the woman’s head several times while making anti-Asian statements, police said.
Kari was treated in hospital for a fractured pelvis, said Manhattan District Attorney Cy Vance Jr.
Brandon Elliot, 38, has been charged with two counts of second-degree assault as a hate crime and one count of attempted first-degree assault as a hate crime, in connection with the attack , according to the DA.
The surge in hate crimes across the country was first seen in March and April last year at the height of the Covid-19 pandemic amid “negative stereotypes about Asians linked to the pandemic” , according to an analysis of preliminary official police data by the Center for the Study of Hate and Extremism at California State University, San Bernardino.
While hate crimes fell 7% overall last year, those targeting Asians rose nearly 150% in 16 of the country’s largest cities in 2020, according to the analysis.
New York accounted for the largest increase from three in 2019 to 28 in 2020, an increase of 833%.
The surge in cases prompted the US Senate to pass anti-Asian hate crimes law on Thursday.
The bill, introduced by Senator Mazie Hirono, D-Hawaii, in March, would direct the Department of Justice to expedite the review of hate crimes related to Covid-19 that have been reported to law enforcement and to help them establish means of reporting these crimes. online incidents and raise public awareness.
It would also order the attorney general and the Department of Health and Human Services to issue best practice guidelines on how to tone down racially discriminatory language in describing the pandemic.
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