Attacks spur patrols in Japantown
Volunteer guard aimed at reassuring residents and patrons that their neighborhood is diligently watching out for them
SAN JOSE >> Civic leaders in San Jose’s Japantown are enlisting volunteers to launch and maintain a highly visible community patrol over the historic district in the wake of escalating anti-Asian violence in the Bay Area and across the country.
Retired San Jose police veteran Rich Saito, who is still working as a reserve officer, is spearheading the effort modeled after a similar protective initiative in San Francisco launched near the start of the pandemic a year ago.
“We have to do something to protect people, especially the seniors, in Japantown,” Saito said in an interview Saturday.
The first step: Assemble volunteers and go over the ground rules to ensure that they know how to safely observe, record and report suspicious or troubling activity and de-escalate it without exposing themselves to danger or injury.
That work began in earnest Saturday with Saito leading volunteer orientation and training. The urgency is inflamed by surging violence against Asian Americans during the COVID-19 pandemic, reaching a tragic peak with the slayings of eight people — six of whom were of Korean or Chinese descent — this week at Atlanta-area spas.
In San Jose, recent violence involving Asian victims include a vicious sexual assault and attack of a woman at Diridon Station during which the assailant profanely denigrated Asian people. And amid the tension, on Friday a man inflicted a head injury on an elderly Filipina woman while trying to carjack her during an alleged crime spree that involved another carjacking.
“With all this interest, we need to get people involved and take ownership of Japantown, to protect residents, businesses and visitors,” Saito said.
One particular focus of his is to offer help to people who go to the Yu-Ai Kai senior center for lunch, a population he worries “are prime targets for people who want to take their aggressions out on Asians.”
To Saito, the community patrol concept is meant to supplement police given their bandwidth constraints, and also serve as a passive deterrent to violence if potential aggressors know people are watching.
“The recognition occurs prior to an attack, with behavior detection for people looking agitated or taking
aggressive postures and expressions,” he said. “Just by saying ‘Hi’ and “How are
you,’ and they know they’re being noticed, that could deter them.”
That has been the tack of the United Peace Collaborative, which was founded in San Francisco a year ago and serves as the model framework for what Saito is pursuing in Japantown. In fact, Saito is spearheading the creation of a San Jose chapter
of UPC, following chapter expansions in Oakland and Los Angeles.
The collaborative formed as people of Asian descent suffered harassment and violence at the outset of the COVID-19 pandemic, driven by references to the coronavirus — led by then-President Donald Trump — as the “Chinese virus,” “Wuhan virus” and “kung flu.”
“That gave people in America permission to do whatever they want to Asian people,” said UPC co-founder Leanna Louie.
In San Francisco — where high-profile attacks seem to be surfacing every week — 35,000 people live in a 22 square-block area of Chinatown, and the majority are elderly, Louie said. Like Saito, she recognizes that police can’t always conduct saturation patrols, she wouldn’t necessarily want them to, for the sake of keeping foot traffic and business robust.
“We don’t want to just pick up the phone and call 911. We can resolve many problems by de-escalating and calming the situation,” she said. “We want to make people feel welcome. But we do have to let everyone know we’re paying attention.”
Louie and Saito are aligned on that point, and are looking to channel people’s heightened awareness of anti-Asian racism and violence into something restorative. So far, the results are promising: Louie said her small group of volunteers looks to grow to as many as 60 in the coming days and weeks, and Saito said one call-out for volunteers has yielded 100 interested people.
Saito called the response “rewarding,” and gives the nascent Japantown initiative needed flexibility, since his goal is for volunteers to commit to anywhere between one patrol shift a week to one a month, and having a large stable of candidates means different availabilities can be accommodated.
He holds out hope that once vaccinations are widespread and the constant threat of COVID-19 subsides, these patrols will have lost their necessity. But he’s not interested in waiting it out.
“In the meantime,” Saito said, “I don’t want anyone attacking any of my seniors and community members.”