Asian Americans in S.F. fearful after attacks
SAN FRANCISCO — Two grandmothers stabbed and a third punched in the face in broad daylight. An 84-year-old man fatally shoved to the ground while on his morning walk. In the past seven months, at least seven older Asian residents have been brutally attacked in San Francisco, a city with one of the largest Asian American populations and the oldest Chinatown in the country.
“It’s a horrible feeling to be afraid in your own community,” said John Hamasaki, who is a member of San Francisco’s Police Commission and who is ethnically Japanese. “People are genuinely afraid to go outside, to walk down the street alone.”
The attacks first shocked and angered Asian American residents in the city. But the question of what to do about the violence has now become a source of division.
Many residents of Chinese descent are calling for a significant increase in police patrols. The city’s Asian American leaders, however, said they would rather explore solutions that do not involve law enforcement. One of the most proudly liberal cities in the country is torn between its commitment to criminal justice reforms in the wake of George Floyd’s killing and the brutal reality of the city’s most vulnerable residents being stabbed in the middle of the day on busy city streets.
Connie Chan and Gordon Mar, the two members of the San Francisco Board of Supervisors who are of Chinese descent, have been under pressure from Chinese activists to increase police staffing, a move the elected officials have largely resisted. Chinese activists — many of whom also denounce Chesa Boudin, the city’s district attorney, for not being tough enough on crime and back a recall effort against him — have shown up at meetings to challenge officials.
“I haven’t heard of anyone in the Chinese community who doesn’t want more police,” said Leanna Louie, a former Army intelligence officer who is Chinese American and who last year founded a neighborhood watch group called the United Peace Collaborative. “We are very dissatisfied with Asian representatives. We are going to work furiously to replace them.”
Hate crimes against all major ethnic groups in California rose sharply last year, and bias crimes against Asian Americans more than doubled, from 43 in 2019 to 89 last year, according to a report released in June by the California attorney general’s office. The group most targeted by hate crimes in the state remained African Americans, with 875 bias crimes recorded last year.
In San Francisco, the assaults themselves have become a point of dispute. Asian American leaders and residents disagree over whether the attacks were random or were motivated by racial animus. None of those arrested in the seven most high-profile attacks since January have been charged with a hate crime.
The city’s immediate response to the attacks was to redeploy 20 officers onto foot patrols. A multilingual hotline to report hate crimes was established. But both city and community leaders have acknowledged that those measures have not been enough.
“I take personal offense to what we see happening on the streets because I’m very sensitive about the need for us to take care of our elderly population,” Mayor London Breed said in an interview. “I was raised by my grandmother,
and I can’t imagine if someone did this to her.”
The mayor’s spokesperson, Jeff Cretan, said she had requested the hiring of 200 officers over the next two years, roughly enough to replace officers who are retiring. The city’s Board of Supervisors scaled back the request to 135 officers, a move the Police Department said will result in the force shrinking because of imminent retirements.
Bill Scott, the chief of police, said he was disappointed by the board’s decision.
“The style of policing that I believe San Franciscans want is labor-intensive — community engagement, foot beats, bicycle patrols,” Scott said. “We are far short of where we need to be.”
Chan, one of the city’s two supervisors of Chinese descent, argues that the money can be better spent on other city services and that the police can do more with its current staffing.
“It’s not really about the number of officers; it’s really about the quality of our officers,” said Chan, who immigrated to San Francisco from Hong Kong as a teenager.
Jenny Chan, a San Francisco resident who immigrated from China as a child and grew up in low-income housing in the Tenderloin, a neighborhood rife with drug dealing, is scathing of what she said has been inaction among San Francisco leaders.
“Right now it’s just like a war zone,” she said of the Tenderloin. “We want stability. This is why we came to America.”