Amid rising anti-Asian violence, elderly Asian women thwarts her attacker on Market Street

(John Chen/GoFundMe)

By Sri Ravipati

(SAN FRANCISCO) An elderly Asian woman who was assaulted on Market Street was able to turn the tables on her attacker on Wednesday amid the recent "wave of attacks towards the Asian community," her family said.

KPIX 5 reported the incident occurred at Market Street and Charles J. Brenham Place near McAllister Street at approximately 10:30 a.m.

The victim, a 76-year-old woman, allegedly was waiting at a traffic light when a man, who appears to be in his 30s, punched her in the head.

She was armed with a stick and struck the man.

As seen on video, after police arrived, the woman yelled in Chinese at the man as he was wheeled away on a stretcher, "Why'd you hit me?"

"He hit me," she is heard saying to a police officer through tears. "He just suddenly punched me!"

Police did not disclose a motive for the attack at this time.

KPIX 5 interviewed the victim, later identified as Xiao Zhen Xie, from her retirement home in San Francisco with help from her daughter, Dong-Mei Li, to translate.

Li said her mother is “very traumatized, very scared and this eye is still bleeding,” per KPIX 5. “The right eye still cannot see anything and still bleeding and we have something to absorb the bleeding.”

“She’s terrified to even step out,” Xie’s grandson, John Chen, said.

Chen organized a GoFundMe page to help the victim and her family cover medical expenses. As of Thursday morning, more than $175,500 has been raised by nearly 6,000 donors.

"My heart is with all the other elderly Asians that [have] also been seriously injured or killed in this wave of attacks towards the Asian community," Chen wrote on the GoFundMe page.

The incident comes amid rising anti-Asian violence in the Bay Area and across the country in the era of COVID-19.

On Tuesday, a 59-year-old Asian man was beaten and nearly blinded also on Market Street.

A 67-year-old Asian man was ambushed at a Central District laundromat on Feb. 23 by three unknown male suspects who dragged him to the ground, assaulted him, stole his property and left. San Francisco police arrested all three men on Wednesday.

A 75-year-old Asian man was killed in a robbery while out for a walk in his neighborhood in Oakland last week — to name a few local incidents.

Multiple other attacks on Asian Bay Area residents have prompted a widespread call for justice and an end to the violence.

On a national level, a string of shootings at spas in Atlanta on Tuesday night by a single shooter has shaken the Asian community. Many are calling the killing spree a hate crime and act of domestic terrorism since most of the victims were Asian women, the New York Times reported.

According to a Pew Research Center survey, Asian Americans reported having experienced racial slurs or racist jokes since the beginning of the pandemic more than any other group.

Recent research from Stop AAPI Hate revealed nearly 3,800 incidents were reported over the course of roughly a year during the pandemic.

National leaders this week are condemning anti-Asian violence, including President Joe Biden. The president denounced the hate crimes against Asian Americans throughout the coronavirus pandemic as "un-American" in his first national prime-time address, News Break reported.

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