. Poypiti Amatatham contributed reporting from Bangkok. Then Came a Brutal Attack. San Francisco (BCN) . After Vicha died, Eric says, he saw so many videos, video after video of attacks in the news. eventAction: 'load' But let's try to make it work anyway. Shortly after Vicha was pronounced dead, Monthanuss phone rang. You've successfully subscribed to this newsletter! 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. The trust-building really took us 10 years, Wan says. We are one of the worlds fastest growing After several weeks, the advocate replied that the office didnt have the budget to hire a translator. Why did this happen? ga('ads.send', { Vicha Ratanapakdee, a Thailand native who his family says emigrated to America to . Jaeah Lee is a magazine journalist based in San Francisco, with a focus on criminal justice. CONTACTS:. On the far side of the bridge, where the bay meets the Pacific, the engine stopped. These laws can add time to an underlying sentence; in California, they can extend a sentence by three years. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, After her sons Zoom classes on Jan. 28, Monthanus began to worry about where her father was. As he was escorted out of the courtroom, an older woman later identified as his grandmother shouted, "I love you Antoine! As she watched the parade of flowers and ashes float out to sea, she spoke to him. There had been so many attacks since the one on her father. Among the most alarming were the stories of a 57-year-old Asian woman who was pushed off a railway platform onto the tracks, and an 83-year-old Asian man who died from a head injury after being assaulted by a group of boys. As she replayed the footage again and again, Monthanus kept coming back to the same conclusion. There was barely a moment to grieve. 2021 CBS Broadcasting Inc. All Rights Reserved. The San Francisco District Attorney's office stated on Monday, February 8, that their detention plan to hold 19-year-old Antoine Watson without bail was granted by the court. I think he has to pay for what he did. Now they wanted action. 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. He didnt take anything from my father, not even the tablet, she says. ga('ads.send', { Investigators interviewed some 100 people and reviewed 175,000 computer files, some of which indicated that the gunman had visited white-supremacist websites. This January, Vicha was eager to regain his stamina after a recent series of heart operations, so that he could walk again for longer distances. Where did the assault happen? 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. A few hours after speaking with the nurse, a doctor called to ask permission to insert a catheter into a vein in his neck and drill a small hole into his skull, to release pressure from bleeding. In the hours before the attack, Mr. Watson had a string of setbacks. window.googletag.pubads().addEventListener('impressionViewable', function(event) { On the corner where Vicha paused in his steps, theres a view of the bay and the skyscrapers downtown. In the absence of any sense of resolution, the couple began searching for clues on their own. eventCategory: event.slot.getSlotElementId(), Your father is a victim. (Under California law, families of victims are eligible for work compensation only if a minor died or was hospitalized.). The court system, which they thought would deliver swift justice, was confoundingly slow. Love you, dude. The young man repeated himself. He's currently . Some assailants have yelled slurs while throwing a punch or slashing at their victims with a knife. 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. 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. 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. 2023 FOX News Network, LLC. 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. Allen Martin reports on the first court appearance by the 19-year-old suspect who fatally assaulted an 84-year-old San Francisco man last week (2-3-2021) 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. A teenager in San Francisco was allegedly caught on video while bum-rushing an 84-year-old man, who later died as a result of the shocking daytime attack. Antoine Watson, 19, . hitType: 'event', Around midnight, after Eric and the boys went to bed, the two women drove to the corner with a bucket, gloves and a dish brush. Mr. Vichas second shot was scheduled for Feb. 12, an appointment he would not live to make. His brothers and sisters are there, Ms. Monthanus said. Police arrested two people Saturday in connection with Thursday's filmed attack that left an elderly California man dead. For his grieving family, the reckoning hasnt gone far enough. The day after Monthanus and Erics first TV appearance, San Franciscos district attorney charged Antoine Watson, the 19-year-old accused of shoving Vicha to death, with murder and elder abuse. She worried how the exposure affected her sons. Eric held her, and she held her sons. San Francisco News, Restaurants . Often, the natural human response is to want someone to blame for the pain that youre experiencing. He added, Although our system is pretty effective at processing cases and punishing, were not effective at providing the kinds of answers to families in pain and need to feel a sense of closure, or to be able to move on with their lives after suffering often unthinkable harm., Most states 48, as well as the District of Columbia have laws addressing hate crimes that are motivated by a victims race, religion or sexual orientation, among other classifications. Members of the department's arson task force took . }); "But when you cross that line, when you commit murder, when you take someone's life like that, we as a city and as a society have to hold you accountable for your actions. 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. Let's dispel the myth right now that there are no consequences for committing crimes in San Francisco," Breed said. 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. Breed spoke of the shock she felt seeing the brutal assault of Ratanapakdee on video and offered her sympathies to the family. Market data provided by Factset. He must be happy now, because hes not coming back anymore! And sometimes, when they were alone and the guilt swelled inside Monthanus, she fell apart. Verbal harassment made up 70.9% of incidents while shunning or avoidance comprised 21.4% of the incidents. District Attorney responds to the . We dont know how to attribute this rise in reporting, he told me. concluded that the gunman, who killed himself after the shooting, had not acted out of bias or a desire to advance an ideology, but suffered from a mental illness and had committed suicidal murder. The Sikh Coalition, an advocacy group, published a statement asking the bureau to clarify how and why it ruled out bias as a motive: Though law enforcement has said this investigation is over, for all the families who lost loved ones, the survivors, the Sikh community and anyone else impacted by hate violence, these questions will remain forever.. San Francisco police were quickly able to identify Watson as the assault suspect. 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. Police said they were quickly able to identify Watson as the assault suspect. Here is a photo of Vicha Ratanapakdee, who was killed in a shocking attack last week in San Francisco. Security footage showed the assailant R She had always looked to her father when something troubled her conscience. A representative for the San Francisco Police Department told FOX News that the agency is unable to confirm that the documents obtained by Lim are police documents. Monthanus didnt hesitate. He was booked on suspicion of murder, elder abuse and assault with a deadly weapon. Any time a family suffers a violent crime, a homicide in particular, theres questions, Boudin told me. In late January 2020, a man died outside a restaurant in Sydney after collapsing from a heart attack. She felt similarly snubbed after asking the advocate about applying for compensation for lost wages. On January 28, 2021, 84-year-old Thai man Vicha Ratanapakdee was knocked to the pavement and killed in San Francisco's Anza Vista neighborhood. He has pleaded not guilty but his lawyer admits that his client had an outburst of rage.. That evening, the couple stood at the doorway to her fathers room on the third-floor intensive-care unit. He ordered one after Vichas death, along with a few cans of pepper spray and security cameras he installed around their apartment. She found it hard to follow the legal vocabulary and felt bad asking Eric to explain terms and intricacies. He died shortly after arrival in the hospital. Im a bad daughter, she would say. While it does not change the legal definition of a hate crime, the legislation commits funds to fast-track federal reviews of hate-crime investigations and approves grants for local law enforcement agencies. she trailed off and let out a deep sigh. His killing came at a time when other disturbing images and reports were emerging from across the San Francisco Bay. ", When asked outside the courtroom what she wanted to see happen, Watson's grandmother said, "To see him walk out this door like I'm walking out right now.". "The rise in hate incidents against Asian Americans during the pandemic is alarming. KGO obtained surveillance footage which apparently shows Antoine Watson, 19, knocking down Vicha Ratanapakdee, 84, in front of his San Francisco home.Officers reportedly discovered Ratanapakdee on a sidewalk and rendered aid before paramedics rushed him to the hospital . 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. Since her fathers death, she and Eric agreed that no one would go out at night without him. eventAction: 'view' It was the type of forceful body blow that might have knocked unconscious a young football player in full protective pads. eventCategory: event.slot.getSlotElementId(), Eric complimented his vest and said he thought about wearing his.