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Authorities arrested a man who violently attacked an Asian woman near Times Square in New York City.
Police indicted Brandon Elliot, 38, on Wednesday with assault and hate crime charges after officers blanketed Manhattan’s downtown neighborhood with wanted posters and offered a reward of $ 2,500 for information leading plight of the man seen on surveillance video Monday brutalizing the woman as she went to church.
Elliot is on parole for life after being released from jail in 2019, according to an NYPD spokesperson. He was convicted of murdering his own mother in 2002. A court date for his final charges has not yet been determined, police said.
Meanwhile, officials berated passers-by for doing nothing to stop Elliot as police say he kicked the 65-year-old woman in the stomach, punched her to the ground, kicked her stomped on the face, shouted anti-Asian slurs and told her: don’t belong here.
The woman, identified by law enforcement sources as Vilma Kari, was released from hospital on Tuesday after being treated for serious injuries, a hospital spokesperson said.
Two security guards from a nearby hotel were hung up after they were seen in video testifying to the attack and doing nothing but shut the door to the building a few steps from the incident. Police are looking for the suspect. NBC New York’s Pei-Sze Cheng reports.
Monday’s attack was one of the latest in a nationwide surge in anti-Asian hate crimes and came just weeks after a mass shooting in Atlanta that left eight people dead, including six women of origin. Asian. The rise in violence has been in part linked to misplaced blame for the coronavirus and former President Donald Trump’s use of racist terms like “Chinese virus”.
New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio called Monday’s attack “absolutely disgusting and outrageous.” He said it was “absolutely unacceptable” that the witnesses did not intervene.
“I don’t care who you are, I don’t care what you do, you have to help your fellow New Yorker,” de Blasio said, evoking the post 9/11 mantra of “see something, say something. “
The attack occurred Monday morning outside a building two blocks from Times Square, a busy and heavily guarded area of downtown Manhattan known as the “Crossroads of the World.”
How to help
Two workers inside the building who appeared to be security guards were seen on surveillance video witnessing the attack, but not assisting the woman. One of them was seen closing the door to the building while the woman was on the floor. The striker was able to casually walk away as spectators watched, the video showed.
The building management company said they had been put on hold pending an investigation. The workers’ union said it called for help immediately.
“If you see someone getting attacked, do whatever you can,” de Blasio said. “Make some noise. Call what’s going on. Go try and help. Call for help immediately. Call 911. This is something where we all have to be part of the solution. We can’t just take a step back. and watch a heinous act happen.
Mayoral candidate Andrew Yang, son of Taiwanese immigrants, said the victim “could easily have been my mother.” He also criticized spectators, saying their inaction was “the exact opposite of what we need here in New York”.
NBC New York’s Tracie Strahan reports.
This year in New York City there were 33 hate crimes with an Asian victim on Sunday, police said. There were 11 such attacks at the same time last year.
On Friday, in the same neighborhood as Monday’s attack, a 65-year-old Asian American woman was approached by a man waving an unknown object and shouting anti-Asian slurs. A 48-year-old man was arrested the next day and charged with threats. He is not suspected in Monday’s attack.
The NYPD Hate Crimes Task Force has asked anyone with information to contact the department’s confidential hotline or submit advice online.
The brutal beating on the Brooklyn subway was caught on camera and the NYPD Hate Crimes Task Force is investigating. NBC New York’s Erica Byfield reports.
Police Commissioner Dermot Shea announced last week that the department would increase awareness and patrols in predominantly Asian communities, including the use of undercover officers to prevent and disrupt attacks.
The neighborhood where Monday’s attack took place, Hell’s Kitchen, is predominantly white, with an Asian population of less than 20%, according to city demographics.
Shea called Monday’s attack “disgusting,” telling NY1 TV station, “I don’t know who attacks a 65-year-old woman and leaves her on the streets like that.”
According to a report by Stop AAPI Hate, more than 3,795 incidents were reported to the organization from March 19, 2020 to February 28. The group, which tracks incidents of discrimination, hatred and xenophobia against Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders in the United States, said that number is “only a fraction of the number of incidents of hatred that actually happen ”.
The NYPD Hate Crimes Task Force is investigating a reported assault at a Midtown subway station on Saturday night in which a man allegedly assaulted a woman and yelled anti-Asian slurs, authorities said.
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