Attack On Asia Woman Wanted For Allegedly Attacking 4 People With Pepper Spray And Making Xenophobic Comments In New York

In the video, the suspect appears to be shaking something that appears to be pepper spray. The NYPD said it sprayed four women with pepper during the altercation. The women refused medical attention, according to a police press release. At one point during the clash, which was not captured in the video posted by the NYPD, an unknown Asian man crossed the team on the sidewalk, NYPD Sergeant Anwar Ismael told CNN. The woman reportedly turned to him and said, “Take all your belongings back to where you came from,” Ishmael said. Hate crimes, including those against Asians, have seen a sharp rise in recent years. The Covid-19 pandemic has sparked attacks on Asians amid online and political rhetoric that stigmatizes them, but this category of hate crimes is often suggested. From March 31, 2021 to March 31, 2022, 110 of the 577 hate crime cases targeted Asians, according to the NYPD Hate Crime Schedule. In March 2022 alone, there were nine incidents treated as hate crimes targeting Asian Americans, with five arrests. In 2020, attacks on Asians nationwide increased to 279 from 161 in 2019, according to the FBI Hate Crimes Report. In all, the FBI reported that more than 10,000 people reported to law enforcement that they had been the victim of hate crime based on race or nationality, sexual orientation, gender, religion, or disability. The organization has not published data for 2021. And despite the alarming rise in such crimes, a small percentage of the reported attacks on Asians end in convictions. A report by the Asian American Bar Association in New York found that of the 233 attacks reported on Asian Americans in New York in the first three quarters of 2021, seven led to hate crime convictions in late May. From March 2020 to December 2021, 10,905 hate cases were reported to “Stop AAPI Hate”, a non-profit organization that monitors self-reported incidents of discrimination and hatred against AAPI, with 4,632 reported in 2020 and 6,273 in 2021, according to with the AABANY report published in May. CNN’s Emily Chang contributed to this report.