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A
parolee
convicted
of
killing
his
mother
nearly
two
decades
ago was
arrested
on
assault
and hate
crime
charges
in an
attack
on an
Asian
American
woman in
New York
City,
police
said
Wednesday.
Police
said
Brandon
Elliot,
38, is
the man
seen on
surveillance
video
kicking
and
stomping
the
woman
near
Times
Square
on
Monday.
The
woman
was
attacked
in front
of an
apartment
building.
(AP
Photo)
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Brutal
NYC
attack
renews
Asian
American
volunteers'
efforts
By
TERRY
TANG
and
DEEPTI
HAJELA
apnews.com
NEW
YORK -
Fed up
with the
incessant
attacks
on Asian
Americans,
Stan Lee
recently
started
voluntarily
patrolling
San
Francisco’s
Chinatown.
So when
the
53-year-old
fire
lieutenant
saw a
video of
a New
York
City
woman
getting
brutally
beaten,
he
didn’t
have to
guess
how his
fellow
volunteers
— other
Asian
American
firefighters
— were
taking
it.
“I’m
pretty
sure
they’re
all
steamed,
like I
am,”
said
Lee, who
is
Chinese
American.
“It’s
personal.
It could
have
been our
aunt or
our mom
or our
grandma.”
The
vicious
assault
of a
65-year-old
woman
while
walking
to
church
this
week
near New
York
City’s
Times
Square
has
heightened
already
palpable
levels
of
outrage
over
anti-Asian
attacks
that
escalated
with the
pandemic.
New
York
police
say the
assailant
yelled
racial
slurs at
the
Filipina
American
woman
and told
her,
“You
don’t
belong
here!”
The
video
quickly
drew
millions
of views
along
with
widespread
condemnation,
not just
for its
heinous
nature
but the
seemingly
indifferent
bystanders.
The
assailant
was
arrested
and
charged
Wednesday
with
hate
crimes.
Asian
American
groups
from
coast to
coast,
already
doing
more
than
digital
activism
—
patrolling,
escorting,
chaperoning
— are
trying
not to
let this
latest
hate
crime
discourage
those
efforts.
“I
think
that
gives us
more
motive
to take
care of
our
own,”
Lee
said.
“We see
everyone
in our
community
as our
own. It
doesn’t
have to
be just
Asians.”
In
New York
City,
Teresa
Ting, a
29-year-old
Chinese
American,
started
what has
become
the Main
Street
Patrol
following
an
attack
on
another
older
Asian
American
woman in
the
Flushing
neighborhood
of
Queens
in
February.
“It
literally
could
have
been my
mother
had it
been the
wrong
place,
wrong
time,”
Ting
said of
that
attack.
She
wanted
to do
something
more
than
posting
messages
on
social
media
and was
happily
surprised
when
people
showed
up to
volunteer.
The
group
has
since
organized
volunteers
to go
out in
parts of
Flushing,
a
heavily
Asian
neighborhood,
on
weekend
afternoons.
Volunteers
travel
in
groups
of
three,
and have
an app
to
communicate
with
each
other.
Ting,
who
wants to
expand
to offer
a
chaperone
service,
said she
wanted
people
to know
how to
get
involved
and
tactics
they
could
use.
“I
think
it’s
very
necessary,
especially
in the
Asian
community
right
now,
just
because
a lot of
the
elders
have a
language
barrier.
They
can’t
speak or
understand
English,”
she
said.
“That’s
why I
feel a
lot of
hate
crimes
have
been
unreported.”
Bystander
training
has also
been on
the rise
and the
need was
only
reinforced
by the
video of
this
week’s
attack.
Emily
May,
co-founder
of
Hollaback!,
which
offers
training
on how
to
respond
when
witnessing
harassment,
said it
was
disturbing
that the
video
showed
several
witnesses
who
didn’t
seem to
render
aid to
the
woman,
who has
been
identified
as Vilma
Kari.
In a
post on
a
fundraising
page
Thursday,
Kari’s
daughter,
Elizabeth,
said a
bystander
not seen
on the
video
yelled
at the
attacker
and drew
him away
from her
mother.
“THANK
YOU for
stepping
in and
doing
the
right
thing,”
she
wrote.
Two
onlookers
have
been
identified
as lobby
workers
in a
building
in front
of where
the
attack
took
place.
Neither
intervened
or
called
911, the
police
said.
One of
them was
even
seen
closing
the door
during
the
assault.
May
said
there
were
things
they
could
have
done,
even if
they
were
worried
about
harm
coming
to
themselves,
like
shouting
or
otherwise
creating
a
distraction.
“There
are ways
that
they
could
have
intervened
without
compromising
their
own
safety,”
she
said.
Marita
Etcubanez,
senior
director
of
strategic
initiatives
for
Asian
Americans
Advancing
Justice
AAJC,
said the
organization
partnered
with
Hollaback!
last
year to
offer
free
online
bystander
training
that
focused
on Asian
Americans.
“It’s
clear
that the
training
was
responding
to a
need and
a lot of
concerns
within
the
community
because
we had
over
1,000
people
register
for the
first
two
trainings,”
she
said.
Interest
has
cycled
up and
down
since,
but
demand
has
increased
as
anti-Asian
attacks
have
gotten
more
coverage.
The
New York
assault
came
just two
weeks
after a
white
gunman
opened
fire
inside
three
Asian-owned
massage
businesses
in metro
Atlanta.
Eight
people,
including
six
women of
Asian
descent,
died.
The
shooter
has not
been
charged
with any
hate
crimes,
and
authorities
received
intense
backlash
when
they
cited
the
suspect
blaming
a “sex
addiction.”
Critics
say the
victims’
race is
inextricably
tied to
the
motive.
U.S.
Attorney
General
Merrick
Garland
on
Tuesday
ordered
a review
of how
the
Justice
Department
can best
deploy
its
resources
to
combat
hate
crimes
during a
surge in
incidents
targeting
Asian
Americans.
Garland
issued a
department-wide
memo
announcing
the
30-day
review,
citing
the
“recent
rise in
hate
crimes
and hate
incidents,
particularly
the
disturbing
trend in
reports
of
violence
against
members
of the
Asian
American
and
Pacific
Islander
community
since
the
start of
the
pandemic.”
Asian
American
activists
say
former
President
Donald
Trump is
partly
to blame
because
of his
rhetoric
around
COVID-19,
which he
frequently
referred
to as
the
“Chinese
virus.”
They say
he gave
license
for
people
to show
racism
that was
already
rooted
in
decades
of
anti-Asian
sentiment
in the
U.S.
According
to a
report
from
Stop
AAPI
Hate,
more
than
3,800
anti-Asian
incidents
were
reported
to the
organization
between
March
2020
through
February.
The
group,
which
tracks
incidents
of
discrimination,
hate and
xenophobia
against
Asian
Americans
and
Pacific
Islanders
in the
U.S.,
said
that
number
is “only
a
fraction
of the
number
of hate
incidents
that
actually
occur.”
According
to the
Center
for the
Study of
Hate &
Extremism
at
California
State
University,
San
Bernardino,
hate
crimes
targeting
Asians
ballooned
by 150%
last
year,
while
hate
crimes
overall
during
the
pandemic
went
down 7%.
Cynthia
Choi,
co-founder
of Stop
AAPI
Hate,
lauded
the
volunteer
efforts
that
have
sprung
up in
San
Francisco
and
elsewhere,
but
emphasized
the need
for
training.
“I
really
appreciate
the
interest
in
protecting
our
elders,”
Choi
said.
“My
concern
is
without
proper
training
...
we’ll
have a
situation
where
there
are
interventions
that
aren’t
helpful,
that
might
escalate
the
situation.”
Lee,
the San
Francisco
firefighter,
said he
was
willing
to keep
volunteering
for
however
long it
feels
necessary,
adding
that he
often
bumps
into
volunteers
from
other
citizen
patrols,
a sign
of how
much
attention
the
issue is
getting.
Asian
American
seniors
he’s met
still
want to
maintain
their
routines.
“If
they are
scared
they’re
not
showing
it,
because
they
still
have to
go about
their
daily
lives,”
he said.
____
Tang
reported
from
Phoenix.
Hajela
and Tang
are
members
of The
Associated
Press’
Race and
Ethnicity
team.
Follow
Tang on
Twitter
at
http://twitter.com/ttangAP.
Follow
Hajela
on
Twitter
at
http://twitter.com/dhajela.
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