Brutal Attack On Asian American Woman In New York Sparks Outrage: What We Know So Far

A vicious attack on an Asian American woman as she walked to church near New York City’s Times Square is drawing widespread condemnation and raising alarms about the failure of bystanders to intervene amid a rash of anti-Asian violence across the U.S.

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What happened?

A 65-year-old Filipino immigrant was walking down a street near Times Square when a man, in broad daylight, suddenly kicked her in the stomach.She crumpled to the sidewalk. He kicked her once in the head. Then again. And again. The lone assailant yelled an obscenity at her, according to a police official, and then said, “You don’t belong here."

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What does the video show?

The woman was repeatedly kicked outside a luxury New York City apartment building as staff members appeared to watch without coming to her aid, according to surveillance video of the incident.?The New York Police Department's Hate Crimes Task Force is investigating the assault, and the staff members who witnessed it have been suspended, officials said.

Video appeared to show that as the assault continued, at least three people in the lobby of the apartment stood by and watched. One of them closed the door as the assailant walked away and left the woman on the ground, the video showed.

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What has the police said?

The attack unfolded about 11:40 a.m. Monday in the 300 block of West 43rd Street, which is in the Hell's Kitchen neighborhood of Manhattan, police said.Police released video that captured the man kicking the victim in her stomach, causing her to fall to the ground. The man then stomped the woman's head multiple times while making anti-Asian statements, police said.

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"The victim sustained a serious physical injury and was removed by EMS to NYU Langone Hospital," police said in a statement. She was discharged Tuesday.

Police released photos of the man, who remains at large. Police hope someone can help them identify him.

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What has the administration said?

New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio called the video of the attack “absolutely disgusting and outrageous” and said it was “absolutely unacceptable” that witnesses did not intervene.“I don’t care who you are, I don’t care what you do, you’ve got to help your fellow New Yorker,” de Blasio said Tuesday at his daily news briefing.?

“If you see someone being attacked, do whatever you can,” he said. “Make noise. Call out what’s happening. Go and try and help. Immediately call for help. Call 911. This is something where we all have to be part of the solution. We can’t just stand back and watch a heinous act happening.”

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Mayoral candidate Andrew Yang, the son of Taiwanese immigrants, said the victim “could easily have been my mother.” He too criticized the bystanders, saying their inaction was “exactly the opposite of what we need here in New York City.”

Officials decried the attack, which City Council Speaker Corey Johnson described on Twitter as "absolutely vile."??

Many more officials took to the social media platform to condemn the attack, calling for a strict action.

The attack comes amid a national spike in anti-Asian hate crimes, and happened just weeks after a mass shooting in Atlanta that left eight people dead, six of them women of Asian descent. The surge in violence has been linked in part to misplaced blame for the coronavirus and former President Donald Trump’s use of racially charged terms like “Chinese virus.”