Asian Amerian woman, 65, brutally assaulted in Manhattan.
NEW YORK – An Asian American woman was attacked in broad daylight and had anti-Asian insults hurled at her by her attacker as she walked down a Manhattan street, New York City police said Tuesday.
The woman was hospitalized with serious injuries after a man punched, kicked and stomped on her shortly before noon Monday in front of an apartment building on 43rd Street, police said, while staff in the building appeared to stand by without intervening.
NYPD called the incident “a hate crime assault” and said its Hate Crime Task Force was investigating.
Surveillance video showed the woman, 65, passing in front of the building’s open front doors when the attacker appears in the frame and immediately kicks the woman, knocking her to the ground. The man then kicks and stomps on the woman multiple times before walking away.
After the scene unfolds, the staff inside the apartment building close the door without helping the woman.
Police released photos of the attacker Tuesday and said they were asking the public for information.
The woman was in stable condition at NYU Langone Hospital, police said.
Mayor Bill de Blasio called the video “absolutely disgusting and outrageous” and said it was “absolutely unacceptable” that witnesses did not intervene.
“I don’t care who you are, I don’t care what you do, you’ve got to help your fellow New Yorker,” de Blasio told reporters Tuesday. “If you see someone being attacked, do whatever you can. Make noise. Call out what’s happening. Go and try and help. Immediately call for help. Call 911. This is something where we all have to be part of the solution. We can’t just stand back and watch a heinous act happening.”
Police Commissioner Dermot Shea told NY1 that the attack was “disgusting.” “I don’t know who attacks a 65year-old woman and leaves her on the street like that,” Shea added.