About an hour later, Mr. Vicha, an 84-year-old retired auditor from Thailand, was violently slammed to the ground by a man who charged into him at full speed. ga('ads.send', { By William McCurry. An 84-year old man is dead after a horrific daytime attack in San Francisco's Anza Vista neighborhood. When she finished, the defendant lifted his glasses and wiped his eyes. Video footage shows the teen running at Ratanapakdee and pushing him over, knocking him to the ground. Just six days after taking office, President Biden issued amemorandumcondemning "inflammatory and xenophobic rhetoric" that has put Asian American and Pacific Islander (AAPI) persons, families, communitiesand businesses at risk during the pandemic. Its been a year of pent-up anger and frustration directed toward Asians, he says. 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.". pg.acq.push(function() { In late January 2020, a man died outside a restaurant in Sydney after collapsing from a heart attack. 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. Chesa Boudin, the San Francisco district attorney, says Mr. Vichas death was heinous. . 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. News of a viral outbreak in Wuhan had started circulating in the international news media. 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. An assailant, later identified by police as 19-year-old Antoine Watson, came barreling . assault in Western Addition that led to the death an 84-year-old man, police said. Earlier that week, two more videos emerged from New York City of a man in Times Square stomping on a woman on her way to church; of a man punching and choking another man on the J train. 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. ga('ads.send', { Wans group, Community Youth Center, responded by opening a new office in Bayview-Hunters Point, where the attacks occurred. This image from CCTV footage shows the moment Vicha Ratanapakdee was fatally attacked in Anza Vista, San Francisco. ", 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.". When she made it to the hill, she noticed a neighbor working in his garage and asked if he knew where the episode happened the other day. You've successfully subscribed to this newsletter! In the months since her father died, she and Eric had spent so much of their time at rallies, at court or on the phone with reporters and lawyers. A test soon showed that they had H1N1, a common strain of influenza, and their symptoms subsided within a week. Vicha Ratanapakdee, an 84-year old immigrant from Thailand, was preparing to go on his early morning walk in the quiet Anza Vista neighborhood of San Francisco on Saturday, January 28, 2021. Rev. In several prime-time interviews, including on Nightline and CNN, Eric went on to suggest that Vichas death was not a random outlier but a result of one race targeting another. San Francisco police arrest man who filmed attack of elderly Asian man collecting recyclables, Man punches elderly woman in head as she walks and then plays the victim in shocking random attack in Brooklyn. Send him story tips at lucas.manfredi@fox.com. San Francisco News, Restaurants . She wakes up crying; she goes to sleep crying, Steiner said. 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. 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. Body camera footage of the encounter led officers to identify Watson and a female associate he was with at the time of the assault. In April, Monthanus and Eric attended a rally opposite City Hall, where a hundred or so people gathered on a sandy plaza for speeches and martial-arts demonstrations. Ratanapakdeewas walking in the city's Anza Vista neighborhood on the morning of Jan.28 when he was violently shoved to the ground in whatBoudinreferred to as "a horrific, senseless attack". You can dial 311 or 911, she reminded them. Then, on March 16, a white gunman in the Atlanta area drove to several businesses and shot eight people to death. Monthanus and Eric had been busy arranging her fathers funeral while fielding phone calls and messages from family, friends and strangers. The way he greeted her with relief when she came home late from work. She had always looked to her father when something troubled her conscience. eventAction: 'click_ads' Police later identified the suspect as Antoine Watson, 19. Monthanus was alone in the room with her sister on FaceTime. There will be consequences. Others have injured or killed people without saying a word. Watson, along with his accomplice in the killing, pled "not guilty" at their court hearings. Antoine Watson appears in court during a previous hearing. 2023 FOX News Network, LLC. It was still early, Monthanus reminded herself, but she also couldnt shake the feeling that the world seemed to be moving on. She felt similarly snubbed after asking the advocate about applying for compensation for lost wages. }); The rallies had become a place where the couple could not only feel less alone in their grief but also seek answers they couldnt seem to get elsewhere. 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. 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. hitType: 'event', Chan shared a photo of the person he said attacked him, who appeared to be Black, with reporters. But I dont want it to be like that. Give him a chance, she could hear her father saying. Im a bad daughter, she would say. ga('ads.send', { Why was no one intervening? The man had accepted a plea agreement for domestic-violence charges, and afterward his victim asked the judge if she could say a few words. His brother, Surachai Ratanapakdee, 89, now the only surviving sibling of eight children, remembered Mr. Vicha as studious and curious about the world outside the rice paddies, watermelon fields and orchards of the family farm. 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. SAN FRANCISCO Weary of being cooped inside during the pandemic, . After the last court hearing, Monthanus called the victims advocate assigned to her by the district attorneys office to request a Thai translator. Someone had been falsely claiming to reporters that he was Vichas son and spoke on behalf of the family about what would happen to his remains. Why would you call me when my father just died? Due to the pandemic, the court had reopened at limited capacity to an enormous backlog. February 4, 2021 / 6:00 AM or redistributed. Their desire to make sense of Vichas death, to understand what motivated it, placed them in the center of a conversation so much broader than their own. But once he does, we should work out some kind of situation where we could forgive somehow and move on with our life. Vicha Ratanapakdee as he is knocked to the ground Thursday by an attacker later identified as 19-year-old Antoine Watson in San Francisco, at left, and Vicha in an undated photo, at right. The trust-building really took us 10 years, Wan says. I kept my promise, Dad, she said. In the appeal, the family asked residents in San Francisco to contact the local district attorney Chesa Boudin to ensure that Antoine Watson and Ms Maylasia Goo, a 19-year-old woman charged as an accessory to the crime, face the full force of the law for what they describe as a racially motivated hate crime. 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. They asked the state attorney generals office to help them track what they believed to be a growing number of episodes. ga('create', 'UA-67136960-15', 'auto', 'ads'); Family believes attack of 84-year-old man in San Francisco was racial motivated. Otherwise youre going to have that forever. pg.acq.push(function() { eventAction: 'render' }) We dont know how to attribute this rise in reporting, he told me. }); by Anh L. media-tech companies with hubs around the world. 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. 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. A close friend, also searching, sent her two links that vaguely mentioned Vicha, including an article published in Chinese by KTSF, a local outlet serving a primarily Chinese American audience. eventCategory: event.slot.getSlotElementId(), District Attorney Chesa Boudin has said Goo was seated in the car and played no apparent role in the attack. The amulet, a precious family heirloom, will be passed to the next generation, Ms. Monthanus said. Antoine Watson, a 19-year-old resident of neighboring Daly City, was arrested two days after the attack and charged with . 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.). Now all that remained was the memory of him, the sound of his voice in her head. Monthanus wondered at first, her mind thick with shock. After the attack, as her father lay on the ground, a couple driving by stopped to place a blanket on him. 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. }); }); Prior to joining Fox News' digital team in 2020, Manfredi worked for Fox Business' Making Money with Charles Payne as a production assistant. Antoine Watson, 19, . 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. The segment ran with Vichas photo and the headline Family of 84-Year-Old Killed in S.F. Police officers issued him a citation. After reading about an Asian American teenager in the Los Angeles area who was hospitalized in February after being bullied about Covid, Jeung contacted colleagues at two advocacy groups in California. That he still had a life ahead of him. Kevin Kunishi is an American photographer living in Oakland, Calif., who is known for creating long-form projects that explore aftermath, trauma and identity. Watson was arrested along with a female associate he was with at the time of the assault. Otherwise, her mother believed, Vichas soul couldnt leave the earth and start its journey toward the afterlife. Captured on a neighbors security camera, the video of the attack was watched with horror around the world. Check out what's clicking on Foxnews.com. In San Francisco, where 36 percent of the population is of Asian descent, 16 percent of crime victims of known ethnicity were Asian, a similar situation to Alameda County. . Verbal harassment made up 70.9% of incidents while shunning or avoidance comprised 21.4% of the incidents. ", ABC7's Dion Lim spoke with Ratanapakdee's family that said a temper tantrum is "no excuse" for murdering someone. Vicha and Jintana Ratanapakdee on their wedding day in 1970. a mob descended on the Capitol early that month, Family of 84-Year-Old Killed in S.F. A few days later, Eric asked me if I saw the news about the recent attack on Carl Chan, the head of Oaklands Chinatown Chamber of Commerce, who has been a vocal supporter of increasing foot patrols and camera surveillance in the neighborhood. She had even persuaded him to leave his wallet at home, at least for another few weeks, when he was scheduled for his second shot of the coronavirus vaccine. Two days after Vicha died, Eric created a GoFundMe page to raise money for the funeral, which included a photo of Vicha and a description of his assailant derived from a mix of facts and raw emotion: A despicable 19-year-old thug that came to his neighborhood in a stolen vehicle and decided to prove how tough he was by brutalizing a senior citizen, Eric wrote. Ratanapakdee was walking in the Anza Vista neighborhood of San Francisco on the morning of January 28 when 19-year-old Antoine Watson ran across the street and violently shoved him to the ground. ), 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. Its like continuing to use a screwdriver when you need to use a saw.. She watched him for several more hours, his hand in hers. ga('ads.send', { Breed went on to say that she was appearing with both Chief Scott and District Attorney Boudin to say that 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. I want to know the truth. He graduated from Ithaca College with a Bachelors of Science in Television-Radio. The streets were quiet. 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. Police . I killed Dad.. She added thatRatanapakdee's family was "horrified" when she relayed the information. },false) No one helped him because they thought he had Covid, Jeung says. 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. I want to know what happened. He was cited by the San Francisco police for running a stop sign and reckless driving and then slept that night in his car. hitType: 'event', During her own speech that day, which she wrote by hand and rehearsed the night before, Monthanus told the crowd to call the city, including the police, for help when necessary. He didnt take anything from my father, not even the tablet, she says. 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. stay inside. 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. 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 . But he says there is no evidence to suggest it was motivated by racial animus. In the hours before the attack, Mr. Watson had a string of setbacks. Two days after entering the hospital, just before dawn, Vicha died in his sleep. eventAction: 'view' In March, a man waving a Laotian flag told a small crowd at a protest in San Mateo, Calif., that Vicha reminded him of his grandparents, who collected cans to get by, which was why he decided to go on the front lines and patrol Chinatown in Oakland. Antoine, he shouted, holding up the baby. It was the second such march in a week; the first, in Oakland, California, also drew dozens of supporters, many of them carrying signs demanding that racism be stamped out, according to the San Francisco Chronicle. document.querySelector("#google_image_div").addEventListener('click',function(){ Throughout 2020, multiple strangers had come at her seemingly out of nowhere. San Francisco Mayor, Police Chief, DA Condemn Fatal Assaults On Seniors; Vow To Address Violence, denounced the recent rise in violent crimes in the city, 76-year-old private investigator Jack Palladino, Suspects Sought In Home Invasion Robbery Of Elderly Woman In San Francisco, Public File for KBCW-TV / KBCW 44 Cable 12. Three days later an attacker shoved a 91-year-old man in Oaklands Chinatown to the ground, another video that rocketed around the internet. Considering him being 19 or even older now, he is no longer a child and is capable enough to keep his hands to himself. 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. After interviewing prosecutors across more than 30 states, Avlana Eisenberg, a law professor at Florida State University, found that district attorneys offices often avoid adding hate-crime charges even and perhaps especially when the crime is particularly horrific, she wrote in The Atlantic this year. And once I hear that, I dont think we have a choice but to accept it., I dont know if we can, you know, let him go, he added. 2021 CBS Broadcasting Inc. All Rights Reserved. window.googletag.pubads().addEventListener('slotOnload', function(event) { A victims advocate assigned by the district attorneys office helped the couple apply for state reimbursement for the cremation, the funeral and other expenses. They sailed toward the Golden Gate Bridge, the choppy waters jostling them as they chanted the Five Precepts. A few steps away, she noticed a dark stain at the end of a driveway. His brothers and sisters are there, Ms. Monthanus said. But what brought her out to the rallies, more than anything, was her desire for someone to answer for the loss of her father. She could feel the weight of the pandemic starting to lift, but where there had once been anticipation, she now felt dread.
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