What kind of person would do this? In the . She thought about Antoine, knowing there were people in his life who loved him. ga('create', 'UA-67136960-15', 'auto', 'ads'); Anyone who thinks San Francisco is an easy touch, you need to think twice." . document.querySelector("#adunit").addEventListener('click',function(){ I know its not a scientific poll or whatever. The responses confirmed a thought in his mind all the same. SALT LAKE CITY (KUTV) - An 84-year-old California man is dead after a seemingly random daylight attack in the Anza Vista neighborhood of San Francisco, video from ABC 7 News shows. 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. The San Francisco Chronicle reports supporters of the victim's family packed the courtroom wearing "justice for Vicha" t-shirts.. Video of the incident went viral and came to symbolize the spike in anti-Asian hate, although the San Francisco District Attorney . 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. 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. Vicha and his first grandson, Titus Lawson, in 2009. At a vigil in Madison Park in Oakland the week after the Atlanta shootings, a mother stood with her young son, holding a sign with Vichas face on it. However, his comment to the Timeshassparked the hashtags#JusticeForVicha and #StopAsianHate on social media, which come amid a startling increase in hate incidentsagainst Asian Americans across the United States. Im not a cop. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. Two suspects have been arrested. When we go to the beach we can dream that he is with us., She plans to bring the other urn back to her fathers hometown in southern Thailand, where the local Buddhist temple has a stupa that holds the familys remains. Monthanus could now see her father enter the frame as he climbed up the hill and to a corner where he would have continued straight. Let's dispel the myth right now that there are no consequences for committing crimes in San Francisco," Breed said. Watson allegedly carried out the deadly attack on senior citizen Vicha Ratanapakdee in the city's Anza Vista neighborhood on January 28, 2021. San Francisco News, Restaurants . California lawmakers have approved$1.4 million in state funds to help Asian Americans report hate incidents following the recent uptick. Then Came a Brutal Attack. A news cameraman wrestled with his tripod. Hi! he shouted over and over. The Oakland attacks came as many in the Bay Area began changing their social media photos to bring awareness to the seemingly unprovoked killing of an 84-year-old Thai man in San Francisco last month. Poypiti Amatatham contributed reporting from Bangkok. One of the biggest flaws of hate-crime laws, she says, is their focus on punishment. He had just gone to dinner with a few relatives visiting from Beijing. Monthanus sat on her bed that evening with Eric and their 11-year-old son, Titus, Googling her fathers age and the cross street where she found the stain. Some assailants have yelled slurs while throwing a punch or slashing at their victims with a knife. 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. ga('ads.send', { Prior to joining Fox News' digital team in 2020, Manfredi worked for Fox Business' Making Money with Charles Payne as a production assistant. Instead, he paused for a moment and turned right, as though whatever caught his eye made him decide to change course. We are one of the worlds fastest growing 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. A monk leaned over and gently shook Vichas ashes into the lapping waves. 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. "The rise in hate incidents against Asian Americans during the pandemic is alarming. 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. },false) Antoine Watson held in attack on 84-year-old victim. Last year Ms. Monthanus, Mr. Vichas daughter, was twice accosted on the street by people who told her to leave the country because, the attackers said, Asians had caused the coronavirus. This was the 70th. She knew what he would say if he were here now. pg.acq.push(function() { 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. In the past week the California Legislature approved $1.4 million in funding to track and research racist incidents against Asian-Americans. I think he has to pay for what he did. Kevin Kunishi is an American photographer living in Oakland, Calif., who is known for creating long-form projects that explore aftermath, trauma and identity. Video footage played during witness testimony this week shows Antoine Watson . . Family believes attack of 84-year-old man in San Francisco was racial motivated. News of a viral outbreak in Wuhan had started circulating in the international news media. 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. "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. She told her husband, Eric Lawson, who rushed home from the restaurant where he worked. window.adsContainer = {"positionAfterTitle":{"code":"Article_Desktop_300x250_Middle5_Rel_Newrev","isOrganicUserAd":true,"max_width":336,"max_height":280},"position2":{"code":"Article_Desktop_300x250_After_Title_Rel_Newrev","max_width":336,"max_height":280},"position3":{"code":"Article_Desktop_300x250_Below_Next_Rel_Newrev","max_width":300,"max_height":250},"position4":{"code":"Article_Desktop_300x250_Middle_Rel_Newrev","max_width":300,"max_height":250},"position5":{"code":"Article_Desktop_300x250_Middle1_Rel_Newrev","max_width":300,"max_height":250},"position6":{"code":"Article_Desktop_300x250_Middle2_Rel_Newrev","max_width":336,"max_height":280},"position7":{"code":"Article_Desktop_300x250_Middle3_Rel_Newrev","max_width":300,"max_height":250},"position8":{"code":"Article_Desktop_300x250_Middle4_Rel_Newrev","max_width":300,"max_height":250},"position9":{"code":"Article_Desktop_300x250_Middle5_Rel_Newrev","max_width":336,"max_height":280},"position10":{"code":"Article_Desktop_300x250_Middle6_Rel_Newrev","max_width":336,"max_height":280},"position11":{"code":"Article_Desktop_300x250_Middle7_Rel_Newrev","max_width":336,"max_height":280},"position12":{"code":"Article_Desktop_300x250_Middle8_Rel_Newrev","max_width":336,"max_height":280},"position13":{"code":"Article_Desktop_300x250_Middle9_Rel_Newrev","max_width":336,"max_height":280},"position14":{"code":"Article_Desktop_300x250_Middle10_Rel_Newrev","max_width":336,"max_height":280},"position15":{"code":"Article_Desktop_300x250_Middle11_Rel_Newrev","max_width":336,"max_height":280},"position16":{"code":"Article_Desktop_300x250_Middle12_Rel_Newrev","max_width":336,"max_height":280},"positionTop":{"code":"Article_Desktop_970x250_Header_Rel","isOrganicUserAd":false,"max_width":970,"max_height":250},"positionBottom":{"code":"Article_Desktop_Sidebar_Bottom_Rel_Newrev","isOrganicUserAd":true,"max_width":300,"max_height":600},"positionBottomRight":{"code":"Article_Desktop_300x250_After_Title_Rel_Newrev","isOrganicUserAd":true,"max_width":336,"max_height":280}} let gads_event; MonthanusRatanapakdee with her husband, Eric Lawson. A San Francisco judge has ruled that a man accused of killing an 84-year-old Thai grandfather will stand trial. pg.acq.push(function() { In an unprovoked attack, Antoine Watson, 19, charged at Vichar Ratanapakdee, 84, on Thursday during the senior's morning walk. Love you, dude. The young man repeated himself. A preliminary hearing for the man accused of fatally pushing Vicha Ratanapakdee in San Francisco last year commenced on Tuesday, reigniting calls for justice and an end to anti-Asian violence. who was violently pushed and killed by Antoine Watson in . An 84-year-old man was killed after he was brutally attacked on a San Francisco street. she trailed off and let out a deep sigh. In a quiet room upstairs draped in gold and red, she knelt before a shrine of Buddhas, vases filled with fresh tulips and a black-and-white portrait of her father. Vicha Ratanapakdee, a Thailand native who his family says emigrated to America to . }); 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. 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. window.googletag.pubads().addEventListener('slotOnload', function(event) { The submissions came from 31 states and the District of Columbia, with nearly half the reports originating in California and New York. Officers discovered an 84-year-old man lying on the sidewalk, rendered aid and summoned medics to transport the victim to a hospital for life-threatening injuries. 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. He has pleaded not guilty but his lawyer admits that his client had an outburst of rage.. I told him to walk that way. 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. Lea Suzuki/The Chronicle. Monthanus offered me a pastry and asked if I had seen the latest news, about the 64-year-old Asian woman in Riverside, Calif., who was stabbed in the stomach while walking her dogs and later died of her injuries. 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 just the way that he answered the question that made me feel like he didnt really care about our emotions, about what we were asking about., Boudin, who couldnt discuss the particulars of the case, understood where Eric and Monthanus were coming from. hitType: 'event', Maybe he went to Target, a few blocks from their home, where he liked to grab a coffee and browse the aisles. ga('ads.send', { Less than 24 hours later, a spokesman for the Cherokee County sheriff reduced the rampage to the act of a sex addict having a really bad day; then it was revealed that the same spokesman reportedly promoted T-shirts calling the coronavirus an IMPORTED VIRUS FROM CHY-NA. The rage boiled over. People use the "young teenager" label on him as an excuse to obviously protect him and his behavior. [1] [2] [3] The assault was captured on a CCTV camera . Mom, you know what? A former public defender, Boudin was part of a new wave of progressive prosecutors who entered office the year before with the promise of reform. A victims advocate assigned by the district attorneys office helped the couple apply for state reimbursement for the cremation, the funeral and other expenses. }); Since her fathers death, she and Eric agreed that no one would go out at night without him. Believe Attack Was Racially Motivated., Amanda Nguyen, a prominent activist, shared Sernoffskys report. Eric and Monthanus being interviewed by a local TV station outside the Hall of Justice in San Francisco in July. window.googletag.pubads().addEventListener('impressionViewable', function(event) { 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.. Jaeah Lee is a magazine journalist based in San Francisco, with a focus on criminal justice. 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. Monthanus agreed, even as her worry turned to panic. Patrol officers' body camera footage of the encounter led officers to later identify Watson as the suspect in the murder of Ratanapakdee. },false) She could see that Vichas death meant something bigger than her own grief, that he was part of a history that preceded her and a future she could help shape. A young man in a gas mask and a bulletproof vest said he had flown in from New York City after seeing the video. (Eric, who worked at two restaurants as a server and manager before the pandemic, was on unemployment.) But, we can't solve a problem without knowing how big it is,"San Francisco assemblymember and chair of the state's budget committee,Phil Ting, said in a statement. "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. Inside, Monthanus held her composure as her frustration grew. During the pandemic, she persuaded him to avoid shopping and stick to outdoor walks. Check out what's clicking on Foxnews.com.