In an increasing wave of hate crime against Asians in the US, where in a recent shooting case in Atlanta eight people were killed out of which at least six were identified as Asians, a man attacked a 75-year-old Asian woman Xiao Zhen Xie and punched her on the street. The elderly woman turned the tables on him with a stick and both were taken to the hospital for treatment according to the police.

Just came upon an attack on an elderly Asian woman on Market Street San Francisco. Effort I got more details pic.twitter.com/5o8r0eeHE2

In the video, the elderly woman can be seen crying while holding an ice pack to her swollen and bloody face, telling the people and officers around her what the attacker had done. Meanwhile, the attacker was handcuffed to a stretcher.

Reports say that this was his second attack on a person of Asian descent, with the first one being an 83-year-old Asian man in a separate incident.

Here is what I’m hearing from the elderly lady, “This asshole, swung at me. (points to assailant) You damn asshole. You hit me! (sobbing to officer) He hit me. That asshole. Punched me right here.”

In an interview with KPIX 5, Xiao Zhen Xie said, with her daughter Dong-Mei Li interpreting, that she was “Very traumatized, very scared and this eye is still bleeding. The right eye still cannot see anything and [is] still bleeding and we have something to absorb the bleeding.”

She said she had been waiting to cross the street at the traffic light when the man, Steven Jenkins, came up and punched her. Though she fought off her attacker and defended herself. Her family said the incident has left her scared for her life, unable to see out of her left eye, and unable to eat.

© GoFundMe

“As you can see she is extremely terrified,” John Chen, her grandson, told KPIX 5. “She’s terrified to even step out.”

The police are apparently still investigating whether a bias against Asians was a motive for the assault; yet, with violence against Asians on the rise and this being the guy’s second attack on an Asian person, it’s not difficult to connect the dots.

The family has started a GoFundMe to cover her medical expenses and therapy bills, with $566,146 raised at the time of writing this article.

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