A 75-year-old Asian woman says she fought back after being attacked in San Francisco

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San Francisco police said Steven Jenkins allegedly assaulted an 83-year-old Asian man in a separate incident and was chased by a security guard when he hit Xie.

The guard was able to hold Jenkins until the police took him into custody.

CNN has tried to reach Jenkins, but he is being held in San Francisco County Jail on $ 50,000 bail and cannot be reached for comment. The San Francisco Public Defender’s office said it is not yet involved in the case.

Witnesses said he had been in another physical altercation about 30 minutes earlier, a San Francisco police spokesman said in a statement.

The video features a crowd of police officers, paramedics and bystanders gathering around Xie holding an ice pack to the side of her head.

She cries out and points to a man handcuffed to a stretcher and being treated.

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“He hit people,” Xie hears in the video in Cantonese. “He bullied me, he bullied me, asshole.”

At one point, Xie gestures to the man with a large stick she is holding.

Police said Jenkins, 39, was taken to a hospital for “an unrelated prior medical condition.”

They said the woman was not responsible for his injuries.

Jenkins was later booked in San Francisco County Jail on two allegations of assault likely to cause serious bodily harm and two allegations of elder abuse, police said.

Both victims were taken to hospital for non-life-threatening injuries, police said.

Police have not identified the victims and said the case is still under investigation.

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“Investigators are working to determine whether bias was a motivating factor in the incident,” said police.

Violence and discrimination against Asian Americans have increased dramatically across the country, coinciding with the Covid-19 pandemic.

The Stop AAPI Hate group says it has received at least 3,795 firsthand complaints of violence and discrimination against Asian Americans since it began tracking them down last March.
The murders of eight people, most of them Asian, in three spas in the Atlanta area have heightened the community’s fears.

Xie told KPIX she was leaning against a utility pole and waiting for a traffic light to change when she was hit.

She told KPIX that she found a stick and used it to defend herself. Her daughter, Dong-Mei Li, translated the interview.

‘I do not know him. Why [did] Did he attack me? Xie told KPIX through her daughter.

Li said her mother couldn’t see out of her left eye on Wednesday night.

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“Very scared and traumatized and very hurt and this eye is still bleeding,” Li said, referring to her mother.

Xie told KPIX that she has lived in San Francisco for 26 years.

“As you can see, she’s extremely scared,” Xie’s grandson, John Chen, told KPIX. “She’s terrified of even getting out.”

The SFPD said the number of patrols in mostly Asian neighborhoods is expanding after an “alarming spike” in attacks on Asian Americans in recent weeks.

CNN’s Dan Simon and Augie Martin contributed to this story.

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