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NEW YORK (AP) – A parolee convicted of murdering his mother almost two decades ago has been arrested on charges, including criminal assault as a hate crime, in an attack on a woman of Asian descent in New York City, police said Wednesday morning.
Police say Brandon Elliot, 38, was the man seen on surveillance footage kicking and stomping on the woman near Times Square on Monday. They said Elliot was living in a hotel that serves as a homeless shelter a few blocks from the scene of the attack. He was taken into custody at the hotel around midnight. Advice from the public led to his apprehension, police said.
Elliot was convicted of stabbing his mother to death in the Bronx in 2002 when he was 19. He was released from prison in 2019 and is on parole for life. The parole board had previously twice refused his release. His case also included a robbery arrest in 2000.
“When you release people from jail and put them in homeless shelters, you are asking for trouble,” NYPD Commissioner Dermot Shea told WPIX-TV. “There has to be a safety net and there has to be resources for them. … You just shake your head and say, “What could possibly go wrong” and that’s what’s wrong. It should never happen.
Elliot, who is black, faces charges of assault as a hate crime, attempted assault as a hate crime, assault and attempted assault in Monday’s attack, police said. It was not immediately clear whether he had a lawyer who could speak on his behalf. He was to be arrested by video on Wednesday.
The victim has been identified as Vilma Kari, a 65-year-old woman who emigrated from the Philippines, her daughter told The New York Times; the newspaper did not identify Kari’s daughter by name.
Philippine Ambassador to the United States Jose Manuel Romualdez said the victim was Filipino American.
The country’s Foreign Minister Teodoro Locsin Jr. condemned the attack in a Twitter message.
“This is seriously noted and will influence Philippine foreign policy,” he wrote, without specifying how.
The Philippines and the United States have long been allies, but Philippine leader Rodrigo Duterte is a vocal critic of U.S. security policy who has decided to end a key deal that allows for large-scale military exercises with the United States. US forces in the Philippines.
“I might as well say it, so no one on the other side can say, ‘We didn’t know you took racial brutality against Filipinos seriously at all.’ We are doing it, ”Locsin said.
Kari was on her way to church in midtown Manhattan when police said a man kicked her in the stomach, threw her to the ground, stomped on her face, shouted insults at her anti-Asian and told her, “You don’t belong here” before casually walking away in front of the spectators.
She was released from hospital on Tuesday after being treated for serious injuries, a hospital spokesperson said.
Monday’s attack, among latest in nationwide surge in anti-Asian hate crimes, sparked widespread condemnation and concerns about spectators’ failure to intervene. New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio called the attack “absolutely disgusting and outrageous” and said it was “absolutely unacceptable” that witnesses did not help the woman.
The attack came just weeks after a mass shooting in Atlanta that killed eight, including six women of Asian descent, and just days after a 65-year-old Asian American woman in the same downtown Manhattan neighborhood was threatened and heckled with anti -asians.
The rise in violence has been in part linked to misplaced blame for the coronavirus pandemic and former President Donald Trump’s use of terms such as ‘Chinese virus’.
The attack happened Monday morning outside a luxury apartment building in Hell’s Kitchen, a predominantly white neighborhood west of Times Square. Two workers inside the building who appeared to be security guards were seen on 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 building management company said they had been put on hold pending an investigation. The workers’ union said it called for help immediately.
Residents of the building defended the workers on Wednesday in a letter to the management company and the media. They claim that a video clip focusing on the suspect and the assault was “unfortunately cut to inadvertently exclude the compassionate action” taken by staff, which they said included helping the victim and the alert of doctors.
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. The NYPD said last week it was increasing awareness and patrolling in predominantly Asian communities, including the use of undercover officers. to prevent and stop attacks.
“This is crucial to the equation,” de Blasio said of the new police efforts. “These are very few people, but we have to find each one of them and stop it.”
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Associated Press editors Jim Gomez in Manila, Philippines, and Karen Matthews in New York City contributed to this report.
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