On Wednesday, the New York City Police Department (NYPD) released a statement confirming that they had arrested an individual following a vicious assault on a 65-year-old Asian woman, as reported by CNN.
The individual, a black man named Brandon Elliott, was arrested and “charged with Felony Assault as a Hate Crime,” according to the NYPD’s Hate Crime Task Force. The assault, which took place on Monday, was captured by surveillance cameras, with the suspect being filmed leaving the scene by additional cameras; the release of the footage led to numerous tips from the public that ultimately led to his capture.
In the attack, Elliott punched the woman multiple times, then kicked her repeatedly in the head. According to the NYPD, he could be heard shouting “you don’t belong here” before fleeing the scene. The attack took place in front of an apartment complex in Midtown Manhattan.
The video footage depicts several bystanders who did not intervene during the assault. The Brodsky Organization, which owns the apartment complex where the incident took place, released a statement confirming that “the staff who witnessed the attack” but did nothing to stop it “have been suspended pending an investigation in conjunction with their union.”
Anthony DiLorenzo, a reporter with PIX11 News, tweeted out additional information about the suspect, revealing that Elliott was already on parole for the crime of murdering his own mother in the Bronx back in 2002.
The incident marks the latest in a series of violent and racially-motivated attacks against Asian Americans by black suspects in the United States. Other examples include an assault on a 68-year-old Sri Lankan immigrant in a New York City subway by 36-year-old Marc Mathieu, and the murder of 84-year-old Vicha Ratanapakdee, a Thai man, by 19-year-old Antoine Watson; both attackers were black.