In the video of the attack, a person with a red top is seen running up to a man and a woman on the street, and then swinging at the man while the woman shouts while another individual is watching. In another clip, the male victim is cursed and looks like he was pushed or beaten, although it is unclear in the video whether it is the same attacker or another person as part of a group.
The attack took place on November 19, 2020, Wendy Haddow, Tacoma Police Public Information Officer, told CNN. She filed a complaint at the time, but police did not link it to the video until relatives of the victims recognized their relatives in the footage.
“The family saw it on the news,” Haddow said. She declined to comment on whether the person who shot the video was one of the attackers, citing the ongoing investigation.
According to Tacoma police, the victims did not know the attackers.
“They’ve never seen them, never had anything to do with them,” Haddow said. She told CNN that it should decide to the Pierce County prosecutor’s office to prosecute the case as a hate crime.
“I want him to be better. I want him to know it was bad,” the man said in Korean, according to a translation by KIRO.