An elderly woman who was attacked on Market Street in San Francisco on Wednesday – the youngest victim in a spate of attacks on Asians in the Bay – put her attacker off the table and left him with injuries that had to travel to the hospital.
Xiao Zhen Xie spoke candidly with CBS San Francisco about the attack on her senior retirement home in the city, with her daughter, Dong-Mei Li, helping translate.
“Very traumatized, very scared and this eye is still bleeding,” Li told KPIX. “The right eye can still see nothing and is still bleeding and we have something to record the bleeding.”
Her mother held an ice pack on her face at the attack scene. Police said the attacker as well as the victim were taken to a hospital for treatment.
The 76-year-old, who has lived in San Francisco for 26 years, is surrounded by her family and says she was quite startled and that the attack was completely unintentional. Her immediate instinct was to fight back.
She said she was just waiting at a traffic light when the suspect suddenly hit her with her left eye.
Immediately, her instincts kick in to defend herself. While she sustained injuries and needed medical help, 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 was very scared. She is terrified of even retiring.
CBS San Francisco Sports Director Dennis O’Donnell happened to be on the scene during his morning run.
“There was a guy on a stretcher and a frustrated angry woman with a stick in her hand,” O’Donnell said. “As far as I could see, she wanted more of the guy on the stretcher and the police held her back.”
Witnesses told the station they saw the woman bumping into her attacker.
In a video taken at the scene, the suspect is handcuffed to a stretcher with a bloody face. The sobbing victim appears to be embarrassed and waves a wooden plank at him as he is taken away.
“You bum, why did you hit me?” said the woman in Chinese.
She turned to the crowd that was gathering and shouted, “This bum, he hit me,” as she lifted and sobbed the stick she was holding. “He hit me, this bum,” she repeated.
Officials also say there was a second victim earlier, 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 prejudice was a factor.
The family has set up a GoFundMe account to help with medical expenses.