Authorities arrested a man they said was suspected of stabbing two Asian women without warning in downtown San Francisco on Tuesday.
Officers were dispatched to 4th and Stockton Streets just before 5 p.m. and found the wounded, who had been taken to hospital, according to the Associated Press. There was no immediate news about their conditions.
Witnesses said KPIX-TV A man holding a knife was walking down the market street when he approached a bus stop, stabbed the women, and then moved away.
Police did not immediately clarify whether the women were specifically targeted or whether the attack might have been a hate crime.
Matt Hani, a San Francisco Board of Supervisors representative, expressed his anger Tuesday over the incident.
“A disgusting and horrific attack on Market Street this afternoon of two elderly Asians,” He said on Twitter. “I have been in close contact with SFFD and SFPD. The suspect has just been arrested. The victims are in the hospital. # StopTheAttacks #StopAsianHate.”
Asian Americans have been the target of several unprovoked attacks in the San Francisco Bay Area and other parts of the country in recent months. The attacks are believed to stem mainly from misleading anger over the coronavirus pandemic, which has originated in China.
Anti-Asian hashtags roseThe study emerges after Donald Trump linked COVID-19 to China for the first time on Twitter
Former President Donald Trump has often drawn widespread criticism for his anti-China rhetoric. Prejudice and anti-Asian attacks have grown dramatically During the past year in conjunction with this speech.
Asian Americans made up nearly 6.7 million people in California in 2019, the largest in the country by far, according to the Pew Research Center.
Just last weekend, two Asian women I was attacked in New York City Police said that a stranger asked them to take off their masks before someone hit him in the head with a hammer.
In March, the organization Stop Hate AAPI – Established last year in response to increased targeting of Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders during the pandemic – she said she has received reports of nearly 3,800 incidents of hate in a year and estimates that this is only a fraction of the actual number.
California’s Center for the Study of Hate and Extremism in San Bernardino found a 164% increase in hate crime reports against Asia in the first quarter of 2021 versus a year ago in 16 cities and jurisdictions across the country.
Contribution: The Associated Press
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