Now it’s ‘homicide’
An Asian man who was brutally assaulted in an April hate-crime attack has died from his injuries, the NYPD announced Saturday.
Yao Pan Ma, 61, was repeatedly kicked in the head April 23 while collecting cans in East Harlem, cops said.
Ex-con Jarrod Powell was caught on video assaulting Ma and busted four days after the savage attack, which left the victim in a coma. Ma died Dec. 31, the NYPD said. Powell, 49, was initially charged with attempted murder and two counts of assault as a hate crime. He has pleaded not guilty.
The case has now been designated a homicide, although upgraded charges were not yet filed, the NYPD said on Saturday. Powell is due back in Manhattan Supreme Court on Feb. 10.
The last known case of murder as a hate crime in the city may have been in 2017, when James Jackson, of Maryland, chose a random stranger in Midtown and killed him with a sword. The victim, Timothy Caughman, 68, was black. Jackson was later sentenced to life in prison.
Powell, who has at least 15 prior busts dating back to 1988, claimed the victim attacked him first — and that video of the sickening assault was “a whole lot of bulls--t.”
He was held on $100,000 cash bail at his arraignment. A father of two
Ma, an out-of-work Chinese immigrant, was collecting cans at Third Avenue and East 125th Street when he was stomped. He was taken to Harlem Hospital following the beating.
His wife, Baozhen Chen, had feared her husband would not recover from his medically induced coma — and demanded justice for the father of her their two kids.
Chen did not answer a knock on the couple’s apartment door Saturday afternoon.
Neighbor Ruth Howell, 64, told The Post that when Chen is home, there is a light on in her bedroom. The light was off Saturday.
“It is so sad. They were like two peas in a pod. They were always together,” Howell said, noting she last saw a “sad” Chen on Friday.
“They came in together. He would be pushing the shopping cart with the bottles,” Howell said, noting Ma was a “quiet person.”
“It angers me. He was out there trying to make a few dollars to help his family. You expect him to come home, not for this to happen,” she added.
The neighbor said whenever she asked Chen how her husband was doing, “she shook her head and looked down.”
Said Howell: “You can see the sadness in her eyes. I feel bad for her. She is a good person. That shouldn’t happen to her. “
Howell said Ma’s accused attacker Powell “needs to do time, serious time, like 25-to-life. It’s senseless. Now she is by herself.”
Howell said her daughter went out to buy a sympathy card and they both plan to put money in it and give it to Chen.
Ma’s shocking attack made national headlines as anti-Asian hate crimes skyrocketed across the country and in New York City.
“These incidents are continuing. It’s senseless violence and it’s brutal. A good government seeks justice,” said Wellington Chen, executive director of Chinatown’s Business Improvement District and a 50-year Big Apple resident.
Neither Powell’s attorney nor the Manhattan DA’s Office returned messages for comments.