An Asian man was punched in the face on the Lower East Side by a homeless man who spewed obscenities in an unprovoked attack the NYPD has deemed a possible hate crime, cops said.
The unsuspecting victim parked his car in front of 196 Allen St., near Houston Street, around 9 a.m. and was checking to make sure he was in a legal spot when the attack occurred, an NYPD spokesman said.
There was a language barrier, but the victim told police he heard the attacker say the word “Chinese” several times, cops said.
The attacker ran down Allen Street.
The NYPD spokesman said the incident is being considered a possible hate crime, and the NYPD Asian Hate Crimes Task Force is now investigating. A police source said cops believe the attacker was homeless because he was carrying a blanket.
Kat Lam, 30, told The Post she was picking up her morning coffee with her roommate, on the corner of Allen between Stanton and Houston streets, when she witnessed the end of the incident.
Lam described the assailant as tall and slim, in his mid-to-late 20s, wearing a brown sweatshirt, carrying a blanket.
“The homeless man started charging after the elderly gentleman, saying things like, ‘If I ever see you around here again, I’m gonna beat your ass.’ And, ‘I’m just going to beat your ass right now,'” Lam recalled. “He just socked him right in the face, right above the eye. You could tell that this older man was in complete shock. He was just frozen.”
The attacker ran off when he realized there were witnesses, Lam said.Â
The police responded “very quickly” to the incident, said Lam, who added the attack was “just completely unwarranted.”
“It was hard to not get emotional because he looked exactly like my dad,” she said through tears.
The assault came the morning after Mayor de Blasio was heckled and swarmed by protesters at a Union Square vigil held to protest anti-Asian racism and mourn the victims of the Georgia massage parlor shootings.
The NYPD has recorded a 1,300 percent increase in anti-Asian hate crimes during the coronavirus pandemic and has stepped up patrols in Asian neighborhoods following the massage parlor murders.
