The video of the attack shows a person wearing a red blouse running towards a man and a woman on the street, then turns to the man while the woman screams while another individual looks on. In another clip, the male victim is being cursed and appears to be pushed or beaten, although it is not clear in the video whether he is the same aggressor or someone else as part of a group.
The attack took place on November 19, 2020, Tacoma Police Public Information Officer Wendy Haddow told CNN. A complaint was registered at the time, she said, but the police did not connect it to the video until the victims’ family members recognized their relatives in the footage.
“The family saw it on the news,” said Haddow. She declined to comment on whether the person who filmed the video was one of the attackers, citing the continuation of the investigation.
The victims did not know the attackers, according to the Tacoma Police.
“They’ve never seen them before, never dealt with them before,” said Haddow. She told CNN that it will be up to the Pierce County Prosecutor’s Office to decide whether to prosecute the case as a hate crime.
“I want him to get better. I want him to know it was bad,” said the man in Korean, according to a KIRO translation.