Oakland police arrested a man suspected of assaulting three people in a series of blatant and apparently unprovoked attacks that left the city’s Chinatown on the edge.
On Monday, the Alameda district attorney’s office accused Yahya Muslim, 28, of assault, abuse of the elderly and special allegations of causing major bodily harm and committing a crime while at liberty pending the resolution of another case, according to court records.
One of the attacks was captured on video. A 91-year-old man was walking on a sidewalk at 800 block of Harrison Street on January 31 when a man wearing a hooded sweatshirt pushed him from behind, throwing him on the floor. The man suffered cuts, bruises and a thumb injury, a police report said.
Muslim assaulted a couple later that day on the same block, the police report said. The woman partially lost consciousness and suffered a deep cut on her chin, according to the report. The next day, February 1, Muslim again attacked people on Harrison Street and was placed in “psychiatric prison,” the report said.
The attacks unnerved Oakland’s Chinatown and fueled outrage far beyond it. While the video of the attack on the 91-year-old man circulated on social media, two actors, Daniel Dae Kim and Daniel Wu, offered a $ 25,000 reward for information leading to the suspect’s arrest.
“The number of hate crimes against Asian Americans continues to skyrocket despite our repeated calls for help,” Kim wrote on Instagram.
At a press conference last week, Carl Chan, president of the Oakland Chinatown Chamber of Commerce, requested that the city bring foot patrols, especially during the Lunar New Year holiday, and install more police cameras. The attacks sparked a debate about how police resources are allocated in Oakland, which, like many cities in the United States, faces calls to reduce its uniformed presence and divert funds from its police force to other programs in the city.
After police released images and videos of the Chinatown attacks, several people came forward and identified the suspect as a Muslim. Witnesses “knew him and recognized him,” said Officer Johnna Watson, a spokesman for the Oakland Police Department. Muslim was arrested on an unrelated warrant and was in prison when he was identified as the suspect in the Chinatown attacks, Watson said.
It was not possible to determine on Monday night whether Muslim had a lawyer who could speak on his behalf.
Muslim, who listed his occupation as a “courtesy clerk” when he was arrested at the Santa Rita Prison, had already been convicted of assault at the Alameda Superior Court in 2015 and 2020, the court records show. He had not yet been sentenced for the 2020 conviction when he allegedly committed the assaults in Chinatown, prompting Alameda County prosecutors to make a special allegation that, if proven, would increase Muslim’s sentence if he were convicted again.
Times staff writer Jennifer Lu contributed to this report.