An Asian man was punched in the face on the Lower East Side by a homeless man who spat obscenities in an unprovoked attack that the NYPD considered a possible hate crime, police said.
The innocent victim parked his car in front of 196 Allen Street, near Houston Street, at around 9 am and was checking to see if he was in a legal place when the attack occurred, an NYPD spokesman said.
There was a language barrier, but the victim told police that he heard the attacker say the word “Chinese” several times, police said.
The attacker ran down Allen Street.
The NYPD spokesman said the incident was being considered a possible hate crime, and that the NYPD Asian Hate Crime Task Force is now investigating. A police source said the police believed the attacker to be homeless because he was carrying a blanket.
Kat Lam, 30, told the Post that she was taking her breakfast with her roommate, on the corner of Allen between Stanton and Houston streets, when she witnessed the end of the incident.
Lam described the attacker as tall and thin, in his early 20s, wearing a brown sweatshirt and carrying a blanket.
“The beggar started running after the elderly man, saying things like: ‘If I see you here again, I will beat you up’. And, ‘I’m just going to hit your ass now,’ “recalled Lam.” He just punched him right in the face, just above the eye. You could say that this older man was in complete shock. He was just frozen. “
The attacker fled when he realized there were witnesses, Lam said.
The police responded “very quickly” to the incident, said Lam, who added that the attack was “completely unjustified”.
“It was hard not to be moved because he looked exactly like my dad,” she said through tears.
The attack came the morning after Blasio’s mayor was harassed and surrounded by protesters at a Union Square vigil to protest anti-Asian racism and mourn the victims of the gunfights in Georgia’s massage parlors.
The NYPD saw a 1,300% increase in anti-Asian hate crimes during the coronavirus pandemic and intensified patrolling in Asian neighborhoods after the massages in the massage parlors.