An elderly woman attacked on Market Street in San Francisco on Wednesday – the latest victim in a wave of attacks on Asians in the Bay Area – turned her attacker’s role, leaving him with injuries that required a trip to the hospital.
Xiao Zhen Xie spoke candidly with CBS San Francisco about the attack from her retirement home in the city, during which her daughter, Dong-Mei Li, helped translate.
“Very traumatized, very scared and this eye is still bleeding,” Li told KPIX 5. “The right eye still can’t see and (is) still bleeding and we have something to handle the bleeding.”
Her mother held an ice pack to her face at the scene of the attack. Police said both the attacker and the victim were taken to a hospital for treatment.
Surrounded by her family, the 76-year-old, who has lived in San Francisco for 26 years, said she was quite shocked and that the attack was not provoked at all. Her immediate instinct was to fight back.
She said she was just waiting for a traffic light when the suspect suddenly hit her with her left eye.
Immediately her instincts sprang into action to defend herself. While she sustained injuries and needed medical attention, it was her attacker who ended up on a stretcher. Li says, “She found the stick in the area and fought back.”
John Chen, Xie’s grandson, told CBS San Francisco that his grandmother is “extremely scared. She’s terrified to even step out.”
Dennis O’Donnell, CBS San Francisco’s sports director, happened to hit the scene during his morning run.
“There was a man on a stretcher and a frustrated angry woman with a stick in her hand,” said O’Donnell. “As far as I could tell, she wanted more from the man on the gurney and the police stopped her.”
Witnesses told the station that they had seen the woman hit her attacker.
In a video shot on the spot, the suspect is tied to a stretcher with a bloody face. The sobbing victim appears to be calling him names and waves at him what appears to be a wooden plank as he is being taken.
“You bum, why did you hit me?” the woman said in Chinese.
She then turned to the crowd of people who had gathered and exclaimed, “This bum, he hit me,” lifting the stick she was holding and sobbing. “He hit me, this bum,” she repeated.
Officers also say there was a second victim previously, an 83-year-old Asian man.
A 39-year-old man is being investigated for both attacks and police say they are trying to determine if bias was a factor.
The family has set up a GoFundMe account to help with medical expenses.