A 70-year-old Asian woman, injured by a much younger man she said was "bullying" her, successfully beat up her attacker on San Francisco's Market Street Wednesday morning.
The incident happened in an area near U.N. Plaza where older Asian women can often be seen selling food items and groceries. As KPIX reports, around 10:30 a.m., near the intersection of McAllister and Market streets, a man who appeared to be in his 30s assaulted the elderly woman, injuring her in the face and head. The woman was armed with a stick, however, and witnesses say they saw her beating the man — and a KPIX reporter shot some video showing him being wheeled away on a stretcher.
Still on the scene, after police arrived, the woman could be heard yelling in Chinese at the man, "You bum, why did you bully me?" and "He hit me, he hit me!"
Just came upon an attack on an elderly Asian woman on Market Street San Francisco. Effort I got more details pic.twitter.com/5o8r0eeHE2
— Dennis O'Donnell (@DennisKPIX) March 17, 2021
The incident comes at a time of escalating tension and tragedy as Asian Americans appear to be targeted for violent crime around the Bay Area and beyond. A mass shooting in Atlanta on Tuesday night, while perceived to be a hate crime because most of the victims were Asian women at massage parlors, was not motivated by hate according to new statements by the suspect. 21-year-old Robert Aaron Long told police that he was trying to eliminate "temptation," and that he targeted massage parlors because they preyed upon his "sexual addiction." Still, many continue to call the shootings a hate crime and an act of domestic terrorism.
A 59-year-old Asian man was severely beaten on Market Street just yesterday. A 75-year-old Asian man was killed in a strong-arm robbery while out for a walk in his neighborhood in Oakland last week. In January, a 91-year-old man was shoved to the ground, seemingly at random, in Oakland's Chinatown. And multiple other recent attacks on older Asian residents of the Bay Area have prompted widespread calls for justice and an end to the violence.
Assemblymember David Chiu is proposing a new statewide hotline for the reporting of hate crimes.
"It’s not just the incredible violence in a number of incidents, but how racism has manifested itself in so many ways," said Chiu in a statement.
In Wednesday's incident, both the victim and the assailant were hospitalized with injuries. Per KPIX, the SFPD is investigating, and may bring aggravated assault charges against the assailant.
