Attacks prompt calls for stronger laws vs. hate crimes
By any measure, it was a brazen and brutal attack, coming less than two weeks after the slayings of six women of Asian descent in Atlanta: A man, in broad daylight, repeatedly kicked a 65-year-old Filipino woman to the ground near Times Square, saying, “You don’t belong here.”
Security guards who witnessed the attack from a luxury apartment building failed to intervene.
On Wednesday, New York City police charged Brandon Elliot with felony assault as a hate crime in connection with the attack. Elliott, 38, was paroled two years ago after he was convicted of stabbing his mother to death in 2002, police said.
For Asians and Asian Americans, both Monday’s attack in New York and the Atlanta shootings were shocking, yes, but hardly surprising.
“Let me be clear: AntiAsian racism and violence is not new,” Sam Hyun, chairman of the Massachusetts Asian-American Commission, said. “The recent coverage and attention is because the nation is finally waking up and having a reckoning with the pain it’s inflicted on the Asian community.”
Of the nearly 3,800 incidents reported to Stop AAPI (Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders) Hate from March 19, 2020, to Feb. 28 of this year, 96 of those hate crimes were in Massachusetts, U.S. Sen. Edward Markey said.
“That means that at least 96 times in our commonwealth, a neighbor, a friend, a co-worker felt unsafe in our community,” he said. “This is an alarming crisis.”
A year after former President Trump first blamed China for the coronavirus, Markey last week co-sponsored the COVID-19 Hate Crimes Act, which would require U.S. Attorney General Merrick Garland to designate a person whose sole responsibility would be to expedite review of COVID19 hate crimes.
Massachusetts Attorney General Maura Healey and legislative and civil rights leaders on Wednesday also called for the passage of a state law that would strengthen the ability to prosecute hate crimes.
“This hate and violence needs to stop,” state Rep. Tram Nguyen, D-Andover, said. “These crimes are intended to terrorize entire communities.”
Nguyen and state Sen. Adam Hinds, D-Pittsfield, sponsored a bill that would combine two seldom-used laws to better reflect their purpose: to charge perpetrators who target a person based on their membership in a protected class.