Elderly woman fights off attacker in San Francisco as vigils against Asian hate crime held across US

An elderly Asian woman fought off an attack in San Francisco by a young white man as vigils were being held across the country for Asian American victims of hate crimes.

Xiao Zhen Xie, 76, picked up a paddle and hit back at a man who attacked her as she was waiting to cross the street. Witnesses say she stood her ground after being punched in the face, using the wooden paddle to defend herself and leaving the man with a bloody mouth.

The attack comes following the death of eight people in Atlanta spa shootings. Six of the victims were women of Asian heritage.

In a video posted on Twitter by KPIX sports director Dennis O’Donnell, the woman can be seen holding an ice pack to her heavily bruised eye and holding on to the wooden plank with her other hand. The man with the bloody mouth is handcuffed to a stretcher as he gets wheeled away by first responders.

According to Insider, the woman can be heard asking the man in Cantonese: “You bum, why did you hit me?”

KPIX reported that the 39-year-old is also being investigated for another attack earlier the same day on an 83-year-old Asian man. Police say they are working to establish if anti-Asian bias was a factor.

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With translation help from her daughter Dong-Mei Li, she explained to KPIX that she was “very traumatised, very scared and this eye is still bleeding. The right eye still cannot see anything”.

Xiao Zhen Xie, who has lived in San Francisco for 26 years, told the local TV station that the attack came out of nowhere as the man punched her in her left eye as she was waiting at a traffic light. Her grandson John Chen told KPIX: “She is extremely terrified. She’s terrified to even step out.”

Mr Chen started a fundraiser on gofundme that as of Thursday morning has raised close to $70,000. Mr Chen wrote on the fundraising page: “I am fundraising for my grandmother that was racially attacked ... I am amazed by her bravery ... she is now suffering two serious black eyes and one that is bleeding unstoppably. Her wrist has also swelled up. She has been severely affected mentally, physically, and emotionally.”

San Francisco Police Chief Bill Scott said on Wednesday: “We have to do our job and we have to investigate these cases with all resources brought to bear and we need to make arrests, and we’ve done that.”

San Francisco Mayor London Breed said: “We need to understand, not only what is going on, but why these attacks occur. Because in some cases they didn’t include any robbery or theft.”

There has been a sharp rise in attacks on Asian Americans in the last year, something experts have linked to the start of the Coronavirus pandemic, according to The Hill.

California State Assemblyman David Chui told KPIX: “It’s not just the incredible violence in a number of incidents, but how racism has manifested itself in so many ways.”

Crowds gathered across the country on Wednesday evening to honour the victims of the Atlanta shootings, lighting candles and holding signs saying “Asian Lives Matter”, The New York Times reported.