Two elderly Asian-American women stabbed in San Francisco attack
- Man with knife approached a bus stop, stabbed the women, then walked away
- Asian-Americans have been the target of unprovoked attacks in US cities
Police in San Francisco have arrested a man who they say is suspected of stabbing two Asian-American women without warning in the city’s Mid-Market area.
Officers were sent to 4th and Stockton streets shortly before 5pm on Tuesday and found the wounded women, who were taken to a hospital. There was no immediate word on their conditions.
The women were 65 and 85, authorities said.
Witnesses told KPIX-TV that a man clutching a knife was walking down Market Street when he approached a bus stop, stabbed the women, and then walked away.
A 54-year-old San Francisco man was arrested on suspicion of committing the attack several hours later, police told the station.
Asian-Americans have been the target of several unprovoked attacks in the San Francisco Bay Area in recent months and in other US cities.
Prosecutors have filed assault and hate crime charges against a man accused of an attack last week in which he allegedly yelled racial slurs before knocking down Carl Chan, president of the Oakland Chinatown Chamber of Commerce.
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In separate San Francisco attacks in March, an 83-year-old Vietnamese man was knocked down and broke his neck in the fall, and a 77-year-old woman was similarly attacked. Police arrested a man for assault and elder abuse in both cases.
Another 83-year-old man was pushed down in February, broke a hip and spent weeks in hospital and in rehabilitation.
A study by the Center for the Study of Hate in Extremism at Cal State San Bernardino, examined police data from 16 jurisdictions across the United States, finding a 164 per cent increase in reports of anti-Asian hate crimes in the first quarter of 2021 compared with the same period last year.
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New York saw the greatest increase at 223 per cent, followed by 140 per cent in San Francisco, 80 per cent in Los Angeles and 60 per cent in Boston.
Some cities, including Phoenix, Seattle and Miami, reported no change, year over year.
The report’s author, Brian Levin, said the jurisdictions were chosen because they have large Asian-American populations and a history of collecting reliable hate crime data.
“This is one quarter of one year with only 16 jurisdictions,” he said. “It’s horrifying.”
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Hate crimes are defined as criminal acts motivated by characteristics such as race, religion or sexual orientation. Hate incidents do not rise to the level of criminality but include acts like bullying, name calling and verbal abuse.
The California-based organisation Stop AAPI Hate said it received nearly 3,800 reports of attacks against Asian Americans nationwide between March 19, 2020, and February 28, 2021. About 68 per cent were verbal harassment, 21 per cent were shunning and 11 per cent were physical assaults.
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Experts point to a number of factors behind the surge, including the use of stigmatised language like “Kung flu” and “China virus” during the pandemic. In March 2020, then-President Donald Trump tweeted the phrase “China virus” more than 20 times, the report said.
Spikes in Google keyword searches for the term “China virus” appeared as recently as this January, according to the report – the same month Trump used it in a tweet decrying the Centres for Disease Control and Prevention’s Covid-19 case and death numbers as “fake news”.
Associated Press and Tribune News Service
