According to recent New York Police Department data, coronavirus-related hate crimes against Asian-Americans have risen in New York City. Since March 7, police officials have confirmed that the NYPD has received 11 complaints of hate crimes related to the disease, ranging from harassment to assault—all of them targeting New Yorkers with Asian backgrounds. NYPD officers have made arrests in seven of those cases.
The incidents occurred in neighborhoods in all five boroughs of the city, officials said. One incident involved a 51-year-old woman riding a bus in the Bronx who was attacked by three 15-year-old girls who beat her with an umbrella, causing injuries to the woman’s face that required stitches. In another case, a woman and her boyfriend were attacked on a subway car in Brooklyn by a man who called them slurs before hitting the woman with an umbrella and punching the man, police said.
The NYPD states that this surge in hate crimes related to the coronavirus against the Asian-American community comes as hate crimes fall overall. NYPD Chief of Detectives Rodney Harrison said the department is addressing virus-related hate crimes through aggressive policing and educating the public on the importance of following laws as the pandemic grips New York. “We can’t allow this thing to separate us,” Mr. Harrison said in an interview on Wednesday, April 7th “We have to work together, and we can’t choose a certain community to blame them in regards to what’s going on.”
Schwartz Perry & Heller remains committed to fighting discrimination, including workplace discrimination against Asian Americans who are unfairly targeted due to the coronavirus. If you feel you have been targeted because of your national origin, please call or email us for a free consultation.