August 16, 2020 Your Neighborhood — Your News®
Month xx–xx, 2019
LOCAL
CLASSIFIEDS
PAGE 7
Standing up against hate
Pols demand hate crime investigation into burning of elderly Asian woman
BY ROSE ADAMS
A group of lawmakers are
calling on the NYPD to classify
a “heinous” attack on an elderly
Asian-American woman in Bensonhurst
as a hate crime — saying
the violent incident was just
the latest in a string of anti-Asian
incidents across the city spurred
by the outbreak of COVID-19.
“The COVID pandemic has unleashed
a tsunami of violence and
xenophobic hate directed towards
our Chinese-American community,”
said the area’s councilman,
Justin Brannan, at an Aug. 10
press conference. “I will continue
to stand with the Chinese-American
community and seek justice
for the victims of this heinous
crime.”
Authorities say two men approached
the 89-year-old Bensonhurst
resident on 77th Street
and 16th Avenue on the evening
of July 14, before the assailants
slapped her in the face and lit her
shirt on fi re with a lighter.
The victim managed to extinguish
the fi re by rubbing her back
on a nearby wall quickly enough
to avoid sustaining potentiallydeadly
injuries, she told ABC7. Police
have not yet made any arrests
in the case, and an investigation
remains ongoing, according to an
NYPD spokesperson.
The assault spurred outrage
throughout the Asian-American
community and prompted
Queens-based rapper China Mac
and actor William Lex Ham to
lead several hundred protesters
through Bensonhurst on Aug.
1 — where they descended on
the NYPD’s 62nd Precinct to denounce
cops for failing to classify
the attack as a hate crime.
Police have pointed to the lack
of evidence regarding the attackers’
motives, such as use of racial
slurs, to claim they don’t have adequate
information to classify the
incident as a hate crime — which
could extend the minimum sentencing
requirement if it’s deemed
a violent felony offense.
However, Ham argued that the
random nature of the attack suggests
it was racially-charged, and
said that the woman’s inability to
speak English may be the reason
she reported no racist slurs.
Locals leaders added that recent
anti-Asian incidents around
southern Brooklyn in the wake of
the novel coronavirus outbreak
also indicate that the assault
likely had racist motivations.
“Though it has been shown
that COVID came to New York
City through Europe, our president
insists on calling it a ‘Chinese
virus.’ This top-down embrace of
racism and hatred has been affecting
Asian New Yorkers’ lives
and livelihoods,” said Democratic
state Sen. Andrew Gounardes.
Citywide, attacks on Asian-
Americans have surged since the
start of the pandemic, with 11 racist
assaults between March and
April, NBC reported.
While Brannan, Gounardes,
and other politicans have begun
to speak out about the attack
and ones like it, Ham said he had
mixed feelings about their somewhat
belatedreactions.
“They should have been on
it when the attack happened. It
speaks to how in or out of touch
they are with the community,”
Ham said. “And on the fl ip side,
happy that the Asian-American
community is no longer silent,
standing up and fi ghting against
injustices, while demanding more
from elected offi cials and local
leaders.”
E-Reader
BK Book Fest
goes virtual
BY KEVIN DUGGAN
Read all about it — online!
The annual Brooklyn Book Festival
will return this fall for an allvirtual
weeklong lineup of readings,
author talks, and workshops
for the borough’s bookworms on
Sept. 28. While COVID-19 will force
this year’s event to look much different
from the typical crowds that
gather in Downtown Brooklyn, the
organizers have used the remote
experience to draw more than 150
authors from around the globe to
participate in the free festival’s online
15th anniversary.
“This really expanded the opportunity
to bring in audiences
from different time zones, as well
as authors for whom in the past
might have been very diffi cult
to travel to the festival,” said Liz
Koch, one of the fest’s co-producers.
“Literally this year everyone
can have a front row seat to this
festival because they’re right at
their laptop.”
This year’s events will come
via livestream, Zoom, or pre-recorded
with a diverse set of writers
and moderators on the weekend of
Oct 3.
Programming runs all day,
with four virtual events per hour,
featuring fi ction, poetry, non-fi ction,
comics and international programming
— and festival attendees
can watch back any event they
weren’t able to catch live, according
to the festival hochos.
“One of the main complaints
we had gotten in the past is people
not seeing all the thing they
wanted to,” said co-producer Carolyn
Greer. “Now you can see what
you want and then go back and see
other things that you couldn’t see
at that time.”
Brooklyn Book Festival, Sept.
28-Oct 5., www.brooklynbookfestival.
org. Free.
Protesters marched through Bensonhurst on Aug. 1 after an attack on an 89-year-old Asian woman. Photo by Cameron Blumberg
Vol. 9 No. 33 UPDATED EVERY DAY AT BROOKLYNPAPER.COM
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