MonthanusRatanapakdee with her husband, Eric Lawson. In the past year, researchers and activist groups have tallied thousands of racist incidents against Asian-Americans, a surge in hate that they link to former President Donald J. Trump repeatedly referring to the coronavirus as the Chinese virus. Mr. Vichas family described his killing as racially motivated, and it spurred a campaign to raise awareness by many prominent Asian-Americans, who used the online hashtags #JusticeForVicha and #StopAsianHate. Police arrested two people Saturday in connection with Thursday's filmed attack that left an elderly California man dead. Months before the country went into lockdown, Russell Jeung, a professor of Asian American studies at San Francisco State University, came down with a bad case of the flu. This image from CCTV footage shows the moment Vicha Ratanapakdee was fatally attacked in Anza Vista, San Francisco. The neighbor didnt appear to speak English, but he pointed toward her and shouted, Right there! Monthanus looked down. He always told me that if something happened to him, this must be passed on to grandchildren, she said. The weeks went on, and Monthanus and Eric sank deeper into their grief as their suspicions mounted toward homicide investigators, who never seemed able to give a straight answer; toward the district attorney, who seemed to put his interests before theirs; and toward Antoine Watson, about whom they knew little beyond the gaping hole he left in their lives. My wife and I thought, Could it be? Jeung recalled. Three days later an attacker shoved a 91-year-old man in Oaklands Chinatown to the ground, another video that rocketed around the internet. } She had come every morning to wish her father a safe journey. As the Lunar New Year approached in February, hundreds of people went out to protest the attacks. Ratanapakdee is seen walking in the driveway of a home when the suspect barrels him into the victim violently, knocking him to the ground before the suspect casually walks away in the same direction he came from. Eric also busied himself with emails to architects and building managers in Chinatown, where he was planning a mural a few blocks from the Dragon Gate. Her hope was for all people to work together, and not blame each other. Monthanus arrived at the steps of the San Francisco Hall of Justice, an imposing concrete building that spans a city block, where Antoine Watson was scheduled to appear for a pretrial hearing. When Monthanus had a gripe with the landlord or a stranger who crossed her, he would tell her to let it go, to leave it to karma. At the time of the attack, Mr. Vicha was only months away from being able to return to Thailand. In another week, her sons would go back to school, and Monthanus, a food-safety inspector for the city school district, would be back at work. Now they wanted action. document.querySelector("#ads").addEventListener('click',function(){ A San Francisco Superior Court judge ruled Friday that the man accused of murdering an 84-year-old Thai immigrant a case that invigorated a movement to stop violence . Here is a photo of Vicha Ratanapakdee, who was killed in a shocking attack last week in San Francisco. Maylasia Goo also arrested. ALSO READ: San Francisco Mayor, Police Chief, DA Condemn Fatal Assaults On Seniors; Vow To Address Violence. At one point, one group may emerge because theyve got greater population, and another group feels pushed out feels like they dont have a voice anymore, the Rev. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, All rights reserved. A few steps away, she noticed a dark stain at the end of a driveway. The family of a Thai senior citizen who died after being violently knocked to the . $300,000 a year is roughly what a family of four needs to earn to live a middle-class lifestyle in the Bay Area. "These violent assaults have a devastating impact on our community as they are part of an alarming rise in anti-Asian American hate during the COVID-19 pandemic," Stop AAPI Hate co foundersManjusha Kulkarni and Cynthia Choi said in a joint statement. Then the flood came. At one point, a neurologist hinted that if it were his father, he would most likely take him off life support. } }); I was like, There is something going on here. At the first few rallies they attended, Eric casually surveyed attendees, asking whether they had ever been spit on or pushed and what the race of the perpetrator was. So we created our own website. (The California attorney generals office collects data on hate crimes in the state but not other cases involving verbal harassment, for example, which often dont constitute crimes.). Footage of the incident showed Ratanapakdee hitting his head on the pavement before sliding into a garage door. hitType: 'event', This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. Crime data from the district attorney offices in San Francisco County and Alameda County, which includes Oakland, show that people of Asian descent were less likely last year to be victims of crimes than other ethnic groups. That older victim has been wrongly described in many news accounts as Asian. I got everything back the house key, even the quarter. Eric fixated on the footage, too. Powered and implemented by FactSet Digital Solutions. Thats not who he is. Steiner, who was Antoines elementary-school principal, said he needed mental-health support, not prison time. San Francisco District Attorneys office stated that Watson had been observed and contacted by San Francisco Police officers earlier that morning for traffic violations following a minor collision and was issued a citation. Right, Mr. Vicha receiving the first dose of a coronavirus vaccine. Quotes displayed in real-time or delayed by at least 15 minutes. Then Came a Brutal Attack. Police said they were quickly able to identify Watson as the assault suspect. In March, a man waving a Laotian flag told a small crowd at a protest in San Mateo, Calif., that Vicha reminded him of his grandparents, who collected cans to get by, which was why he decided to go on the front lines and patrol Chinatown in Oakland. Its been a year of pent-up anger and frustration directed toward Asians, he says. Check out what's clicking on Foxnews.com. LAPD INVESTIGATES KOREATOWN ASSAULT ON AIR FORCE VETERAN DENNY KIM AS POSSIBLE HATE CRIME, According to theTimes, Boudin saidthatRatanapakdee'sdeath was heinous, but that there is no evidence to suggest the attackwas motivated by racial animus. The video was taken from the same angle as the clip that everyone saw, only this footage was longer. Antoine grew up in San Francisco and spent part of his childhood with his siblings, parents and grandparents in the Anza Vista area, where Vicha later lived. The incident was caught on camera, galvanizing the national Stop Asian Hate movement. Monthanus agreed, even as her worry turned to panic. When Wan first set up her branch there, the Bayview was in the midst of a drastic demographic shift that was occurring throughout the region, marked by an influx of Asians and an exodus of Black residents. Breed spoke of the shock she felt seeing the brutal assault of Ratanapakdee on video and offered her sympathies to the family. The number of submissions grew steadily throughout the year, reaching a total of 2,800 by the end of 2020. Investigators interviewed some 100 people and reviewed 175,000 computer files, some of which indicated that the gunman had visited white-supremacist websites. Two days after entering the hospital, just before dawn, Vicha died in his sleep. He told Monthanus that when the time came, he wanted to be scattered in the bay, the place that became his home. Antoine Watson, 19, has been held in County Jail since being arrested Jan. 30 for allegedly charging into 84-year-old Vicha Ratanapakdee two days earlier in the Anza Vista neighborhood. This is in part because the defendant already faces a long prison sentence, and also because, as one prosecutor put it, its impossible to know whats in someones heart. The Bureau of Justice Statistics reported in June that federal prosecutors declined to pursue hate-crimes charges in about four out of every five cases from 2005 to 2019, citing insufficient evidence.. He left his home because of a family dispute and got in a traffic accident in San Francisco at 2 a.m. "You will be held accountable by both the police and the District Attorney. Antoine Watson of Daly City, age 21, was arrested for Murder Assault w/Deadly Weapon Or Assault w/Force Likely To Produce GBI Elder Or Dependent Adult Abuse in San Francisco County, California on January 30, 2021 by San Francisco County Sheriff. Watson has reportedlypleaded not guilty to the incident but his lawyer admits that his client had an "outburst of rage. The San Francisco District Attorney's office told KPIX 5 on Monday that their detention motion to hold 19-year-old Antoine Watson without bail was granted by the court. They will all be together.. But he also suspects that the numbers reflect an animus that only deepened during lockdown. Otherwise youre going to have that forever. A local ABC News affiliate had posted footage from a surveillance camera. People are grieving. Shortly after Vicha was pronounced dead, Monthanuss phone rang. In order to raise 10 children in the San Francisco Bay Area, we should assume Antoine Watson's parents make at least $300,000 a year. She never got to decide. Eric, who grew up near San Jose, described himself as someone who never thought much about race during his upbringing. Please enter valid email address to continue. Vicha and his first grandson, Titus Lawson, in 2009. These laws can add time to an underlying sentence; in California, they can extend a sentence by three years. Wenn Sie Ihre Auswahl anpassen mchten, klicken Sie auf Datenschutzeinstellungen verwalten. let gads_event; In several prime-time interviews, including on Nightline and CNN, Eric went on to suggest that Vichas death was not a random outlier but a result of one race targeting another. The killing of Vicha was so plain as day, said Will Lex Ham, a New York-based actor, who after watching the video flew from New York to San Francisco to help lead protests and safety patrols in Asian neighborhoods. San Francisco (BCN) . 19-year-old Antoine Watson, pushing . But one day last year, while biking near her house, an elderly man shouted at her, You dont belong here. Another time, while walking around the neighborhood with her son, they waved and smiled at a young lady who was listening to music and dancing. This comes after the news made national headlines amid growing concerns about rising anti-Asian sentiment during the pandemic and attacks against Asian American elders. SAN FRANCISCO (CBS SF) -- The suspect in the brutal assault that fatally injured an 84-year-old San Francisco resident last week entered a not guilty plea to a homicide charge during a court appearance Wednesday. San Francisco News, Restaurants . ga('ads.send', { Friends scattered the flower petals. Youre going to survive, Dad, Monthanus told him. Hi! he shouted over and over. On January 29, 2021, investigators obtained an arrest warrant for Watson for 245(a)1 PC - Assault with a Deadly Weapon and 368(b)1 PC - Elder Abuse causing . Watson entered a not guilty plea to charges of murder . Mom, you know what? She told her husband, Eric Lawson, who rushed home from the restaurant where he worked. Watson and his associate, 20-year-old Malaysia Goo, were arrested on January 30, 2021. The support was overwhelming and odd. A long, thick tube protruded from Vichas head. Eric complimented his vest and said he thought about wearing his. Throughout 2020, multiple strangers had come at her seemingly out of nowhere. In July, however, the F.B.I. Police say their suspect Antoine Watson, 19, attacked the senior along Anza Vista and Fortuna . }); An uneasiness had hung over her ever since a mob descended on the Capitol early that month, though really, people had been acting crazy for a year. He had just gone to dinner with a few relatives visiting from Beijing. Your father is a victim. (Under California law, families of victims are eligible for work compensation only if a minor died or was hospitalized.). She was a Thai immigrant living in Alameda a diverse town, she said. or redistributed. When her mother saw the video, she stiffened. Watson was arrested along with a female associate he was with at the time of the assault. On the far side of the bridge, where the bay meets the Pacific, the engine stopped. It was the second such march in a week; the first, in Oakland, California, also drew dozens of supporters, many of them carrying signs demanding that racism be stamped out, according to the San Francisco Chronicle. He's currently . ET on March 15. She guessed he would have walked in a clockwise loop from their building she often suggested he take that route because it included an uphill stretch that would help him get some cardio. In November, another old man spat in her direction as her sons rode their scooters by the bay. Boudin, who started his term just a few months before the lockdown, in January 2020, inherited more than 5,000 criminal prosecutions. }); I kept my promise, Dad, she said. She heard him say severe trauma. The officer said she would have to call the hospital to find out more. Amanda Nguyen, a prominent activist, shared Sernoffskys report in a viral Instagram video, along with two others, one about a 64-year-old Vietnamese woman who was robbed in San Jose and another about a 61-year-old Filipino man whose face was slashed with a box cutter on the New York subway. Any other narrative is false, misleading, and divisive. Nawabi added that Watson comes from a biracial family background and had no knowledge of Mr. Ratanapakdees race or vulnerabilities since the elderly man was wearing a mask, hat, sweater and jeans. According to Sliman Nawabi, the public defender, Antoine feels remorse and shame for what happened and wishes he could sit down with Vichas family so he could explain the struggles he has gone through in life. CONTACTS:. Sie knnen Ihre Einstellungen jederzeit ndern, indem Sie auf unseren Websites und Apps auf den Link Datenschutz-Dashboard klicken. Im just a human being who feels things., He pondered this while sitting in his car, in the spot where Antoine reportedly parked on the morning of the attack on Vicha. In the Bay Area, where Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders make up a quarter of the population, stories like Vichas sparked at least two opposing narratives. Around the same time as the Oakland rally, Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi (D-CA), who represents the Bay Area, and Rep. Judy Chu (D-CA) also denounced the "white supremacy . Monthanus wondered at first, her mind thick with shock. His older daughter, Monthanus, described her father as a devoted Buddhist. They have any language to help anybody.. That January, an old man yelled at her in Golden Gate Park something about a virus and going back to her country while she watched her sons, then 10 and 7, run in a playground. Monthanus and Eric posed for photos and signed a petition to recall Chesa Boudin, as people stopped to greet them with elbow bumps and condolences. It was the type of forceful body blow that might have knocked unconscious a young football player in full protective pads. Our seniors are afraid to walk their own streets, Mr. Chan said. MEAWW brings you the best content from its global team of Antoine Watson, a 19-year-old resident of Daly City, made his first court appearance at the Hall of Justice after being taken into custody . At the rallies they attended, every now and then a different Black man approached the microphone, or met with the couple on the sidelines, and tried his best to break the ice. She thought about her father in the back of the car with the kids, their banter when she got ready for work in the morning. For a short while, Monthanus half believed it, too. In each case, the suspects were Black. eventCategory: event.slot.getSlotElementId(), In the United States and elsewhere, private schools asked their Chinese international students not to return for the spring semester; shopkeepers turned away customers who appeared Asian; Chinatowns emptied. Legal Statement. He has pled not guilty to charges of murder and elder abuse causing death. The group filed out to the edge of the deck. A young man in a gas mask and a bulletproof vest said he had flown in from New York City after seeing the video. His wife suggested that he have some coffee first; he told her he wouldnt be gone for long, whispering so as not to wake the kids. As she replayed the footage again and again, Monthanus kept coming back to the same conclusion. Monthanus didnt always agree with her father, but she loved his spirit. For months Mr. Vicha had been pining to return to Thailand but was unable to because of the pandemic. SF teen who killed 84-year-old man by shoving him to pavement pleads not guilty. The nurse who picked up, however, only had more questions. Im a bad daughter, she would say. After the last court hearing, Monthanus called the victims advocate assigned to her by the district attorneys office to request a Thai translator. Video footage shows the teen running at Ratanapakdee and pushing him over, knocking him to the ground. Rachel Marshall / (415) 416-4468 / Rachel.Marshall@sfgov.org - SAN FRANCISCO-Today, San Francisco District Attorney Boudin announced that the District Attorney's Office has filed charges against two people for the crime that took the life of 76 year-old private investigator Jack Palladino and will file charges against one person for the murder of 84 year-old Vicha Ratanapakdee. Antoine didnt wake up Jan. 28, 2021, with the idea of shoving somebody down and killing them, regardless of their race or gender. Get all the stories you need-to-know from the most powerful name in news delivered first thing every morning to your inbox. District Attorney Chesa Boudin has said Goo was seated in the car and played no apparent role in the attack.
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