ATTACKER SOUGHT
Man’s punch knocks young Asian woman to ground. Assailant walks off, flees on bus
Vancouver police are searching for a suspect after a woman was punched in the face in an unprovoked attack as she was waiting for a bus downtown.
It’s the first of two assaults last month being investigated by police.
According to police Sgt. Aaron Roed, the first assault took place April 12 in which an unknown man attacked a woman in Downtown Vancouver.
Roed said the 22-year-old woman was waiting at a bus stop near Granville and West Pender streets in the afternoon when a man approached her, punched her in the face and fled on a bus.
Surveillance footage shows the man walking south on Granville before veering toward a woman at the bus stop and punching her on the head. The force of the punch knocks the woman to the ground, as the man walks off.
Investigators say the attack was unprovoked as there had been no communication between the man and the woman before the attack.
“Physically, she’s a lot better. Emotionally, she’s going to have to deal with this assault, which happened unprovoked,” said Roed. “She’s going to have to recover and we are there for her. We have provided victim services and physically, she will get better.”
The victim is Asian but police haven’t said whether it will be treated as a hate crime. Roed said the motive isn’t known but police are asking the public to help identify a man, shown in surveillance footage.
“We don’t want to speculate on the motive for this attack. With what is going on around the world right now, we’re not ruling anything out,” said Roed, adding that the VPD’s diversity and hate crime department has been notified and is working with major-crime detectives on the assault.
“This is why we want to identify the attacker, so we can rule anything out and find out if this is a hate crime. This is a disgusting act of an assault on an innocent person. We don’t want to see this type of crime happen to anybody in our community around our city or anywhere in Metro Vancouver. We’re not going to tolerate this and if this is a hate crime, we will be investigating it as that.”
Vancouver police have seen an increase in reports of antiAsian, hate motivated incidents during the COVID-19 pandemic. The VPD said last week that there have been 20 antiAsian hate crimes reported to police this year, including 11 in April alone, compared with a total of 12 in 2019.
The attacker is described as a white man in his mid-20s, with a medium build. He was wearing a dark-coloured T-shirt with a deer emblem on the front layered on top of a grey, long-sleeved shirt. He also wore a grey-and-yellowstriped beanie.
In a separate investigation, police are hoping to speak with two witnesses who stopped to help the victim of an assault that took place April 22.
Police say the 51-year-old victim was attacked around 9 p.m. just outside his home near Franklin and Slocan streets. Investigators believe there were two cyclists who witnessed the attack and stopped to confront the attackers. Officers are hoping to speak with the two cyclists who may have “viable evidence” police can use to further their probe.
Anyone with information that can identify a suspect or the witnesses is asked to contact Vancouver police majorcrime detectives at 604-7172541.