A Washington 15-year-old boy has been arrested for allegedly attacking an Asian couple. The teenager was charged with second-degree assault, said police.
The suspect was 14 when he allegedly attacked a Korean-American couple on Nov. 19, 2020, the Tacoma Police Department announced Friday. The attack was caught on video where the teen appears to punch an Asian man, 56, repeatedly while the woman with him looks frantic. The man suffered a broken rib during the attack, KING-TV, the NBC affiliate in Seattle, reported.
The video recently got viral on social media. Many expressed anger over the attack.
"These racists must be stopped. 15 years old or not, the Black on Asian violence must end now! The Federal powers will not do it. It is up to the police AND good local citizens to intervene and make it stop. No matter what the costs," one tweeted.
Another wrote, "Black people commit hate crimes against Asians at incredibly high rates compared to everyone else. You know the group always screaming oppression. Sickening hypocrites."
The arrest of the teenager comes amid increase in the number of attacks against Asian Americans. But this attack has not immediately been classified as a hate crime.
Police said they received a report about the video of the attack on March 31. Then they asked the public for information regarding the assault.
A family member of the victims contacted police Thursday, officials said.
The victims did not know the assault was recorded on camera, police said.
The video was used by investigators to identify the suspect and realized he was supposed to turn up Friday for a detention review hearing for an unrelated robbery charge. Officers then took him into custody at the courthouse.
In another case of attack on Asian Americans, a New York City man, who was out on lifetime parole for murdering his own mother in 2002, was arrested in the attack on a 65-year-old Asian American woman on her way to church near Times Square, police said last week.
Brandon Elliot, 38, was charged with assault and hate crime offenses after officers covered the midtown Manhattan neighborhood with wanted posters featuring his photo, reported NBC New York.
They had offered a $2,500 reward for information leading to the whereabouts of the man seen on surveillance video attacking the woman.
"The individual we have arrested in this case, 38-year-old Brandon Elliot is charged with a completely unprovoked violent attack on an innocent defenseless woman," NYPD Commissioner Dermot Shea said.
Police said he kicked the woman in the stomach, knocked her to the ground, stomped on her face, shouted anti-Asian slurs and told her, “you don’t belong here.”
"Let me join the Commissioner in being clear: this brave woman belongs here. Asian-American New Yorkers belong here. Everyone belongs here," Manhattan District Attorney Cy Vance said during the joint press conference with Shea.
"Attacks against Asian-American New Yorkers are attacks against all New Yorkers."
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