Attack on Asian woman in Midtown prompts another hate crime investigation

On Monday, a man kicked a 65-year-old woman in broad daylight on a sidewalk in Midtown Manhattan, repeatedly stomped on her and made anti-Asian remarks in what police said called another targeted hate crime.

Police said the attack happened at around 11:40 a.m. outside a building at 360 W 43rd St., where a surveillance video showed that an unidentified man kicked the woman in the chest after the two approached each other on the sidewalk.

The attacker, whom the police department’s hate crimes task force asked the public for help in identifying, stomped on the woman’s upper body and head at least three times after she fell to the ground.

The victim was hospitalized at NYU Langone Medical Center in Manhattan with what police described as serious injuries. Further information on his condition was not immediately available.

The video, which was released by police and garnered attention online, showed a man who appeared to be a construction worker standing in the lobby, unwilling to intervene. He then closed the apartment building’s front door as the woman lay on the ground after the attacker walked away.

The luxury property management company did not immediately respond to a request for comment early Tuesday morning.

The attack was another shocking reminder of the increase in violent crime targeting people of Asian descent across the United States, which advocates say has been exacerbated by racism linked to the pandemic. On March 16, a gunman killed six Asian women in attacks on massage companies in the Atlanta area, killing eight.

The assault on the woman in Midtown Manhattan also came as hate crime investigators said they were investigating the asian man pounding subway on a busy J-train in Brooklyn, an attack that was recorded by another passenger in a TikTok video that has been viewed over 2 million times. The unidentified attacker, who was still at large, repeatedly punched the man and strangled him until the man fell unconscious. The timing of the attack and the nature of the victim’s injuries were not immediately clear.

According to the New York Police Department, there have been 33 hate crimes with an Asian victim so far this year, two of which were motivated by the coronavirus pandemic. Police did not say whether Monday’s attack was linked to Covid-19.