Increasing attacks on older Asian Americans in the Bay Area lead to a new Special Response Unit

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At a press conference in Oakland’s Chinatown on Monday, Alameda County District Attorney Nancy O’Malley announced the creation of a special response unit targeting crimes against Asians, especially elderly Asians.

“The rapid increase in criminal acts targeting members of the Asian community, especially Chinese Americans, who live and work in Alameda County, is unbearable,” she said.

The new unit is the result of two similar attacks in Northern California last week, as well as a spate of crime in Oakland’s Chinatown.

In San Francisco, Vicha Ratanapakdee, an 84-year-old from Thailand, died after being abruptly attacked during a morning walk on Jan. 28, according to San Francisco prosecutor Chesa Boudin. A 19-year-old man has been arrested on charges of murder and elder abuse in the case, he said.
31% of Asian Americans say they have dealt with racist statements or jokes since the start of the coronavirus pandemic

“This was a gruesome, pointless attack, and I offer my deepest condolences to the Ratanapakdee family for this unimaginable pain,” Boudin said in a statement. “My heart goes out to the entire community (Asian American Pacific Islander) for the damage and fear this tragedy has caused.”

And in nearby Oakland’s Chinatown neighborhood, police said a man forcibly pushed three unsuspecting people forcibly after January 31, injuring a 91-year-old man, a 60-year-old man, and a 55-year-old woman.

“It’s not unique to Chinatown or the Asian community that we’ve seen the increase in crime in the city and the entire county, but we’ve seen a very specific increase in crimes against Asians in recent weeks and months,” O’Said Malley.

A 28-year-old man has been charged with three charges of sexual assault, according to prosecuting documents. The man was placed in a psychiatric prison on Feb. 1 for a separate incident in which he again assaulted people, the documents said.

How Pandemic Rhetoric Led to Anti-Asian Bias

The two incidents do not appear to be directly related and there is no evidence of their rationale.

Still, they have added to existing concerns about the rising anti-Asian bigotry, which has become more prominent since the world first learned about a new disease in Wuhan, China.

“It’s absolutely tragic, and unfortunately this is a trend we’ve seen over the past year with regard to anti-Asian violence, and much of it stems from rhetoric we’ve seen regarding the coronavirus,” said John C. Yang , the president and executive director of the civil rights organization Asian Americans Advancing Justice.

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That rhetoric began with former President Donald Trump, repeatedly calling the disease the “ China virus. ” The World Health Organization chose the harmless name “Covid-19” because site-specific names are both imprecise and can lead to intolerance against people of that location.

In fact, a significant number of Asian Americans have said they experienced racism and xenophobia in connection with the pandemic.

Unified crime data on anti-Asian incidents related to the Covid-19 pandemic is not yet available. However, a Pew survey from last June found that almost a third of Asian Americans said they had been victims of racist statements or jokes since the start of the pandemic, while 26% said they fear someone would physically attack them.

Actors work together to fight prejudice

Actor Daniel Wu, who grew up in the Bay Area, spoke at a press conference on Monday about the anti-Asian bias in Oakland's Chinatown.

The attacks on the older Asian Americans in the Bay Area have brought these long-dormant problems to the surface.

A much-shared video by activist Amanda Nguyen highlighted several incidents of what she believed was anti-Asian racism. And over the weekend, actors Daniel Wu and Daniel Dae Kim teamed up to offer a $ 25,000 reward for information that led to an arrest in the Oakland Chinatown attacks.

Wu, who grew up in the Bay Area, said Monday in the Chinatown area of ​​Oakland that he was withdrawing the pay to draw national attention to the plight of Asian Americans.

“We are hit like a one-two punch. There is petty crime with our community. We are being attacked like easy targets,” he said. “But on a larger scale, racist rhetoric of the pandemic has referred to us as ‘the reason for the coronavirus,’ and so Asians across the board have been the target of racist insults, attacked, pushed around and spat on.”

O’Malley, the prosecutor, recognized the special impact of this anti-Asian rhetoric.

“ To still call it ‘Chinese virus’, things like that, that feeds hate and aggression and that hate and aggression often results – sometimes it’s words – but often it’s from committing assault or other types of crimes, ” added them to it.

Des To, the owner of Alice Street Bakery in Oakland’s Chinatown, said the recent attacks in her neighborhood may also be related to the Chinese New Year celebrations on Friday.

“They know it’s almost Chinese New Year and people are going to buy things and maybe have more money on hand, so I think there are more robberies or something like that every year,” she told CNN. “But they’ve actually been worse this year.”

Biden signs executive order on anti-Asian bias

Joe Biden’s government has taken a very different path from the last to address these issues.

In his first week of work, President Biden signed an executive memorandum acknowledging that “inflammatory and xenophobic rhetoric has endangered Asian-American and Pacific Islander (AAPI) individuals, families, communities and businesses.”
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The memo instructed the Department of Health and Human Services to consider issuing Covid-19 guidelines to promote language access and sensitivity to the AAPI community.

CBS News reporter Weijia Jiang asked White House press secretary Jen Psaki on Monday whether the Biden administration would take further steps to address the issue, and whether the president had seen the videos.

“I am not aware that he has seen the videos, but he is concerned about the discrimination against, the actions against the Asian-American community. That is why he signed the executive order and has been candid in making it clear. That attacks, verbal attacks, all attacks of any form are unacceptable and we have to work together to address them, ”she said.

“But the executive order is clearly something he did very early on in his administration … because he felt it was so important to put a marker down.”

CNN’s Nicole Chavez contributed to this report.

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