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Yet today I still face people from the Black community who will come into our office on a weekly basis, saying that we only care about our people, that we just take their resources. And in a way I kind of am. As a subscriber, you have 10 gift articles to give each month. One was that there was a pattern of Black perpetrators and Asian victims, that the pattern was a symptom of a tension dating back decades. a 91-year-old shoved to the ground in Chinatown in Oakland, Calif., a white gunman in the Atlanta area drove to several businesses and shot eight people to death. In an unprovoked attack, Antoine Watson, 19, charged at Vichar Ratanapakdee, 84, on Thursday during the senior's morning walk. Your father is a victim. (Under California law, families of victims are eligible for work compensation only if a minor died or was hospitalized.). 3 min read. Watson, the court documents state, had been cited for reckless driving, speeding and failure to stop at a stop sign in the hours before the attack. Antoine Watson appears in court during a previous hearing. Nawabi described the incident as an impulsive unmotivated assault that resulted from the mental-health breakdown of a teenager. In July, however, the F.B.I. Then, in a jacket, jeans and a white baseball cap, he slipped out of the apartment, down two flights of stairs and into the foggy morning. A news cameraman wrestled with his tripod. A few steps away, she noticed a dark stain at the end of a driveway. That week, on Feb. 4, the couple spoke with San Franciscos district attorney, Chesa Boudin, on a call. The future me, the real me, says, I wish we could forgive everybody, and everybody should acknowledge this bad thing happened. And right now it feels like, maybe, his family sees me as an enemy. Watson entered a not guilty plea to charges of murder . By William McCurry. she trailed off and let out a deep sigh. eventCategory: event.slot.getSlotElementId(), Watson was apparently vandalizing a car when Ratanapakdee looked at him and changed directions on his walk, Connolly said in his detention motion, citing surveillance footage from the scene. }); She was a Thai immigrant living in Alameda a diverse town, she said. Let it go. 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. After her sons Zoom classes on Jan. 28, Monthanus began to worry about where her father was. Elderly Thai man in San Francisco killed by teen in unprovoked attack. On that morning a number of security cameras in the area captured Mr. Watson banging a car with his hand, according to Mr. Boudin, the district attorney. or redistributed. Youre not doing it right, her mother snapped at one point, grabbing the brush. But maybe were going to be hurt forever anyway.. We were like, Is this a hate crime? He was like, I cant talk about this, Eric says. 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. District Attorney responds to the . She said: You are not a victim. I want to know why, she said. Maylasia Goo also arrested. Watson allegedly carried out the deadly attack on senior citizen Vicha Ratanapakdee in the city's Anza Vista neighborhood on January 28, 2021. Monthanus wore a black wool cloak over a pleated dress that flew up as the boat pulled away from the dock. (His mother is Mexican, and he identifies as mixed race; strangers often assume he is white. eventCategory: event.slot.getSlotElementId(), Wenn Sie Ihre Auswahl anpassen mchten, klicken Sie auf Datenschutzeinstellungen verwalten. Titus, dressed in a black suit and a pair of his grandfathers leather loafers that fit tight around his growing feet, chased his little brother around the deck. She had come every morning to wish her father a safe journey. Owners of gun stores reported more Asian customers than ever before. During the pandemic, Vicha usually left the house before 8 a.m. and made it back before his grandsons started their Zoom classes. 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 February, two joggers, women, yelled something about germs at her older son as he played on a dock with a friend. hitType: 'event', You can dial 311 or 911, she reminded them. gads_event = event; An 84-year-old man was killed after he was brutally attacked on a San Francisco street. The video shows that the elderly man had no opportunity to protect himself, Assistant District Attorney Sean Connolly wrote in a motion seeking to detain Watson. Now they wanted action. . The San Francisco District Attorneys office stated on Monday, February 8, that their detention plan to hold 19-year-old Antoine Watson without bail was granted by the court. "The rise in hate incidents against Asian Americans during the pandemic is alarming. On the same day, Watson was apprehended at his home in Daly City along with 20-year-old Maylasia Goo . He didnt take anything from my father, not even the tablet, she says. Get browser notifications for breaking news, live events, and exclusive reporting. It appears that the defendant was in some sort of a temper tantrum, Mr. Boudin said. Mr. Vichas second shot was scheduled for Feb. 12, an appointment he would not live to make. Its still there. A photograph of Vicha Ratanapakdee that hangs in his daughters home. Why did this happen? But I dont want it to be like that. A local ABC News affiliate had posted footage from a surveillance camera. Powered and implemented by FactSet Digital Solutions. https://www.nytimes.com/2021/08/17/magazine/vicha-ratanapakdee.html. ", ABC7's Dion Lim spoke with Ratanapakdee's family that said a temper tantrum is "no excuse" for murdering someone. San Francisco Mayor London Breed, joined by several other elected officials including City Attorney David Chiu, State Senator Scott Wiener, and Supervisors Catherine Stefani and Rafael Mandelman, led the crowd in marching and chanting slogans. 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 . Legal Statement. Footage of the incident showed Ratanapakdee hitting his head on the pavement before sliding into a garage door. Boudin says Antoine Watson was . The neighborhood of Anza Vista, tucked on a hilltop away from traffic, was usually quiet. 2023 CBS Broadcasting Inc. All Rights Reserved. I wonder if its my inner racism coming out. The streets were quiet. Poypiti Amatatham contributed reporting from Bangkok. The suspect, Antoine Watson, was arrested and charged with murder and is pending trial. As she replayed the footage again and again, Monthanus kept coming back to the same conclusion. },false) How could it have been prevented? Left, Mr. Vicha holding his young daughter next to his wife. San Francisco District Attorney Chesa Boudin hassparked outrage on social mediaafter telling the New York Times that 19-year-old AntoineWatsonwas "in some sort of a temper tantrum" when he allegedly attacked84-year-oldThai immigrant Vichar Ratanapakdee. In November, another old man spat in her direction as her sons rode their scooters by the bay. Their younger son, Troy, a bright and playful 8-year-old who is autistic, had become more easily agitated during the lockdown and often stomped and shouted. Security footage, circulated widely on the internet, shows a man running towards Vicha and throwing him violently to the ground before turning around and fleeing, according to KTVU Fox 2 News.. Vicha died in hospital in the early hours of Saturday and soon after, police reportedly charged a 19-year-old man, Antoine Watson, with murder and 20-year-old female friend, Maylasia Goo, with being an . New images have continued to surface on a weekly, sometimes daily, basis. 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.). Youre going to survive, Dad, Monthanus told him. The nurse who picked up, however, only had more questions. How long did he lie outside before an ambulance arrived? San Francisco District Attorney Chesa Boudin said he plans to file murder . Police later identified the suspect as Antoine Watson, 19. Get all the stories you need-to-know from the most powerful name in news delivered first thing every morning to your inbox. She clutched a few sheets of paper in one hand. Mom, you know what? I just want to know why he did it. The first one involved Vicha Ratanapakdee, an 84-year-old San Francisco man of Thai descent, who was on his routine morning walk in late January when a man in a hoodie charged in his direction and . District Attorney Chesa Boudin has said Goo was seated in the car and played no apparent role in the attack. His public defender, Sliman Nawabi, challenged the murder charge, arguing that Watson did not intend to kill Vicha. I have this weird, stupid fantasy, Eric said. The footage is grainy and brief: A tall figure suddenly darts across a street and slams into a much smaller one; the smaller figure crumples onto the pavement and doesnt get back up; the white baseball cap flutters to the ground, like a leaf falling from a tree. hitType: 'event', A witness told the police they heard a voice shouting, Why you lookin at me? twice before hearing Ratanapakdee, prosecutors said. SAN FRANCISCO - In two unrelated cases, San Francisco District Attorney Chesa Boudin said his office has filed charges against Lawrence Thomas and Tyjone Flournoy for the murder of 76-year-old private investigator Jack Palladino, and Antoine Watson for the murder of 86-year-old Vicha Ratanapakdee. 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. By then, Boudin had told reporters that there was no evidence from the police suggesting that Vichas death was motivated by racial animus. Everyone fell silent. } The law was celebrated for recognizing the need to better track violence against Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders. Chesa Boudin, the San Francisco district attorney, says Mr. Vichas death was heinous. MonthanusRatanapakdee with her husband, Eric Lawson. San Francisco's chief prosecutor addressed the January death of Vicha Ratanapakdee at a time when many Asian Americans feel targeted based on their race. We are one of the worlds fastest growing A Feb. 9 report by Stop Asian American Pacific Islander Hate foundover 2,808 firsthand accounts of anti-Asian hate from 47 states and the District of Columbiabetween March 19, 2020 and Dec. 31, 2020, with 126 accounts (7.3% of total incidents)of anti-Asian hate involving Americans over 60 years old. A judge in San Francisco ruled Friday that Antoine Watson will stand trial in the brutal death of 84-year-old Vicha Ratanapakdee. As they waited for Antoines hearing to start, Monthanus and Eric watched from the front row of the gallery as the judge heard a series of other cases. In April, while patrolling San Franciscos Chinatown, a former mayor and son of immigrants from Taishan and Hong Kong pointed to the bank across the street and told me his mother was mugged there a few years ago. These laws can add time to an underlying sentence; in California, they can extend a sentence by three years. Why you looking at me? and then a crushing sound., Watson pleaded not guilty. . That older victim has been wrongly described in many news accounts as Asian. CALIFORNIADA RESPONDS TO ATTACKS AGAINST ELDERLY ASIANS, AS ACTIVISTS CLAIM CORONAVIRUS PANDEMIC TO BLAME, A spokesperson for Boudin clarified that his comment was made "regardingMr. Watsons behavior prior to the murder" and that Boudin "charged the killing of Mr. Ratanapakdee as a murder, the most serious crime on the books.". 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. But we dont want to give up, because unless everybodys safe in that community, nobody is., Lyslynn Lacoste, who runs a city program called BMAGIC and works with Wans group, told me that undoing misperceptions between communities had no quick fix. There were debates among Black residents about what contributed to the shortage of affordable housing, Lacoste says, but tension also took subtler, more pervasive forms the kind she could feel most recently at a neighborhood beauty-supply store when an Asian clerk followed her as she shopped. That afternoon, the couple taped their first interview, with the KTVU reporter Evan Sernoffsky, near the courthouse steps. In reference to the alleged attacker Antoine Watson, Boudin told the Times that "It appears that the defendant was in some sort of a temper tantrum." . In the weeks since it happened, Mr. Vichas death has become a symbol for the vulnerability that many in the Asian-American community feel in this moment. Love you, dude. The young man repeated himself. My wife and I thought, Could it be? Jeung recalled. The mainstream media does not spotlight our stories enough, Nguyen said into the camera, urging her vast following to share the story and tag CNN and MSNBC. I believe people are better than the worst things they have done," said Breed. Im a bad daughter, she would say. Three days later an attacker shoved a 91-year-old man in Oaklands Chinatown to the ground, another video that rocketed around the internet. When I see photos of these Asian elders who have been attacked, the actor Simu Liu wrote in Variety, I see the embodiment of my own parents journey; their dreams and their struggles, their sorrow and their unwavering optimism. Several young people carried signs with an illustration of a 75-year-old Chinese woman who, a few weeks earlier, was punched by a white man and then fought back by whacking him with a wooden board. ga('ads.send', { Their landlord had sent a series of noise complaints and eviction warnings. He had just gone to dinner with a few relatives visiting from Beijing. On the corner where Vicha paused in his steps, theres a view of the bay and the skyscrapers downtown. She remains puzzled why on the morning of the attack he left without his Buddhist amulet, a talisman of protection that he always wore around his neck. Hes 19 years old to be in jail. What is incontrovertible, say leaders of the Asian-American community nationwide, is that the pandemic created a climate of fear and a feeling of insecurity from New York to California. They said they didnt have the capacity to track racism, Jeung says. Her mother had been blaming karma for her fathers death; weakened by his recent heart operations, Vicha often joked that life was getting too painful to bear. This is a hate crime.. 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. I kept my promise, Dad, she said. Whenever she left the house, she tested a can of pepper spray in the bathroom, the fumes burning her eyes, before tucking it in her pocket. On the morning of Jan. 28, when Monthanus and the children were still asleep, he prepared to head out. One hundred days after her fathers death, Monthanus boarded a boat with Eric, their sons and a few friends. His mother, who was also laid off from her job during lockdown, found work through relatives in another state and was, for a while, supporting the family from afar. She lowered her head and opened her palms to touch the rug three times. 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. . In March, just before the country went into lockdown, a woman swung at Monthanus outside a hospital; she ducked the punch before running across the street. ALSO READ: Suspects Sought In Home Invasion Robbery Of Elderly Woman In San Francisco. In the footage, Ratanapakdee, who was originally from Thailand, can be seen walking in the driveway of a house when the suspect suddenly sprinted towards him and knocked him to the ground before casually walking away in the same direction he came from. The Covid-19 Hate Crimes Act, passed with bipartisan support and signed into law by President Biden in May, primarily aims to improve crime reporting and data collection. On her drive home, Monthanus thought about a defendant she saw earlier in the courtroom. She debated whether to show it to her mother, who had become more fragile after a recent stroke. 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. Monthanus and her parents subscribed to a Buddhist belief that, after death, the soul takes 100 days to reach the afterlife. Monthanus didnt hesitate. 2023 CBS Broadcasting Inc. All Rights Reserved. She had always looked to her father when something troubled her conscience. For the past two years, Monthanus had started taking care of her parents more intensely, after her mother was diagnosed with dementia and her father with three clogged arteries. Otherwise, her mother believed, Vichas soul couldnt leave the earth and start its journey toward the afterlife. Around 10 p.m., a new search result popped up. Sometimes Titus would walk into her bedroom to watch TV, see her turn away and ask, Mom, are you crying? Sometimes she walked into a room to see her own mother turn away, sniffling and cheering: Its OK! He has pled not guilty to charges of murder and elder abuse causing death. Its nonstop, you know? She thought about the people she had met at the rallies who had quit their jobs to patrol or speak out full time. Believe Attack Was Racially Motivated., Amanda Nguyen, a prominent activist, shared Sernoffskys report. But the legal tampering window opens two days before that on March 13, where teams will be able to negotiate with free agents before the official start of the 2023 season. California lawmakers have approved$1.4 million in state funds to help Asian Americans report hate incidents following the recent uptick. eventCategory: event.slot.getSlotElementId(), The hearing was brief and procedural; a trial date has yet to be set. That same month, at a protest for Angelo Quinto a Filipino American Navy veteran killed by police officers in Antioch, Calif., in December 2020 a young woman from Hawaii broke into tears while remembering the story of her Filipino-Japanese family, migrants who worked the pineapple and sugar-cane plantations, and the night the cops detained her father, who struggled with addiction, during a mental-health crisis. Then, on March 16, a white gunman in the Atlanta area drove to several businesses and shot eight people to death. What made her father bleed out like that? Thats when I was like: This is more than some kind of accident or robbery or assault. They also identified a female associate he was with at the time of the assault as 20-year-old Daly City resident Maylasia Goo. ), The next morning, Eric called the tip lines for several local news stations and left messages for reporters, inviting them to the Hall of Justice, where he and Monthanus were scheduled to meet with homicide detectives. In March, Jeung says, Stop AAPI Hate received roughly 2,800 reports, about the same number he received in all of 2020. Sliman Nawabi, a deputy public defender representing Watson, disputed the perception that the attack was racially motivated. Investigators interviewed some 100 people and reviewed 175,000 computer files, some of which indicated that the gunman had visited white-supremacist websites. For months Mr. Vicha had been pining to return to Thailand but was unable to because of the pandemic. Anyone who thinks San Francisco is an easy touch, you need to think twice." . But leaders of the Bay Area Asian community say crime statistics are misleading because Asian-American residents, especially immigrants, often do not report assaults or robberies out of mistrust of the system or language barriers. On Jan. 15, he received the first shot of the Moderna vaccine. . Ratanapakdee died after sustaining severe injuries. Due to the pandemic, the court had reopened at limited capacity to an enormous backlog. More than 500 days after the incident, San Francisco Superior Court Judge Richard Darwin ruled that the evidence presented by the District Attorney's Office is enough for a murder trial. Among Asian-Americans, many of whom have endured racist taunts, rants and worse during the coronavirus pandemic, the killing of a defenseless older man became a rallying cry. Family believes attack of 84-year-old man in San Francisco was racial motivated. The video was taken from the same angle as the clip that everyone saw, only this footage was longer. March 3, 2023 12:27 pm ET. Last week, Mayor London Breed, joined by Police Chief Bill Scott and District Attorney Chesa Boudin, said violence in San Francisco would not be tolerated and that any perpetrators would "be held accountable to the fullest extent of the law," especially those who targeted children or the elderly. SAN FRANCISCO (CBS SF) A man charged in the brutal assault of an 84-year-old San Francisco man that was captured on video last month will remain in custody following a court hearing Monday. if(document.querySelector("#google_image_div")){ San Francisco (BCN) . We dont know how to attribute this rise in reporting, he told me. 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. SAN FRANCISCO (AP) The two men arrested in connection with an attempted robbery that lead to the death of famed San Francisco private investigator Jack Palladino are expected to face murder charges, prosecutors said Tuesday. Several people suggested that there was more to the video that went viral, which prompted Monthanus to walk around the block to knock on neighbors doors and ask if they would share their security-camera footage. As he was escorted out of the courtroom, an older woman later identified as his grandmother shouted, "I love you Antoine! A victims advocate assigned by the district attorneys office helped the couple apply for state reimbursement for the cremation, the funeral and other expenses. In recent years, the Asian percentage of the Bayviews population has become five times as large as it was in 1980, while the Black share has shrunk by more than half. Considering him being 19 or even older now, he is no longer a child and is capable enough to keep his hands to himself. His death helped awaken the nation to a rise in anti-Asian violence. But the steps were nearly empty. In the hours before the attack, Mr. Watson had a string of setbacks. It was the type of forceful body blow that might have knocked unconscious a young football player in full protective pads. 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. He graduated from Ithaca College with a Bachelors of Science in Television-Radio. Its like being bullied. ga('ads.send', { She told me, Go wash the blood right away, Monthanus says. Ratanapakdee's head hit the pavement as he fell. 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. But her mind swirled with bigger questions. News of a viral outbreak in Wuhan had started circulating in the international news media. In an unprovoked attack, Antoine Watson, 19, charged at Vichar Ratanapakdee, 84, on Thursday during the senior's morning walk. 2021 CBS Broadcasting Inc. All Rights Reserved. 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. Then, on a brisk and misty Northern California winter morning last month, he stepped outside. He gets talked about as though he's some little baby minor. She heard him say severe trauma. The officer said she would have to call the hospital to find out more. Otherwise youre going to have that forever. Check out what's clicking on Foxnews.com. Vicha and his first grandson, Titus Lawson, in 2009. "Look, I believe in second chances. After several weeks, the advocate replied that the office didnt have the budget to hire a translator. Walking was how he explored San Francisco when he first arrived there from Thailand in 2000, to spend a year with Monthanus while she attended business school, and again in 2018, to help take care of her two sons. One of the biggest flaws of hate-crime laws, she says, is their focus on punishment. Or is this my trauma? "New state funding allows the data gathering to continue, and the research will ultimately lead us to solutions that will make all communities safer.". Mr. Watsons lawyer, Sliman Nawabi, a public defender, said his client would not have been able to identify Mr. Vichas ethnicity through his face mask, cap and winter clothing. At one point, a neurologist hinted that if it were his father, he would most likely take him off life support. Saturday evening at approximately 8:45 p.m., officers served a search warrant on the 500 block of Lisbon Street in Daly City and located Watson and Goo, who were arrested without incident. One of them, a young organizer, told them about the Asian Americans who had marched beside him last summer and said he grew up with Asian neighbors and lately felt that everything is so separated. Another simply laid his hand over his chest during an impromptu speech and, looking at Monthanus, said, My heart goes out to you., Monthanus hasnt known what to really make of these gestures. Then Came a Brutal Attack. She worried how the exposure affected her sons. What kind of person would do this? Even without much publicity, we have already received a strong response from the community, who want their voices heard, Jeung wrote in the groups first report. Antoine turned around and smiled again, until the door closed on him. Monthanus squatted and scrubbed as her mother poured a jug of water over the concrete, the headlights shining behind them. Her father had been assaulted and taken to a hospital, a police officer said. As Vicha recovered from each operation, Monthanus had slept on the floor next to his bed, comforting him through the pain. Lucas Manfredi is a general assignment reporter for Fox News. Let's dispel the myth right now that there are no consequences for committing crimes in San Francisco," Breed said. Monthanus pulled him close, from behind; she didnt want him to see her crying. 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. Will Lex Ham, right, and Max Leung, center, distributed information on how to report a hate crime in San Franciscos Chinatown this month. Officers arrested Antoine Watson, 19, and his female companion . He ordered one after Vichas death, along with a few cans of pepper spray and security cameras he installed around their apartment. When she came back in, she noticed his tablet was gone. He died shortly after being rushed to a hospital. 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 .