San Francisco Mayor London Breed, joined by several other elected officials including City Attorney David Chiu, State Senator Scott Wiener, and Supervisors Catherine Stefani and Rafael Mandelman, led the crowd in marching and chanting slogans. This is in part because the defendant already faces a long prison sentence, and also because, as one prosecutor put it, its impossible to know whats in someones heart. The Bureau of Justice Statistics reported in June that federal prosecutors declined to pursue hate-crimes charges in about four out of every five cases from 2005 to 2019, citing insufficient evidence.. It was just the way that he answered the question that made me feel like he didnt really care about our emotions, about what we were asking about., Boudin, who couldnt discuss the particulars of the case, understood where Eric and Monthanus were coming from. San Francisco's district attorney charged Antoine Watson, the 19-year-old accused of shoving Vicha to death, with murder and elder abuse. I just want to know why he did it. Pa, can you hear me? she repeated. He was booked on suspicion of murder, elder abuse and assault with a deadly weapon. As a subscriber, you have 10 gift articles to give each month. Its the everyday little microaggressions and little nuances thats harder to tackle.. In the Bay Area, where Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders make up a quarter of the population, stories like Vichas sparked at least two opposing narratives. One was that there was a pattern of Black perpetrators and Asian victims, that the pattern was a symptom of a tension dating back decades. But in practice, proving bias is difficult, especially when theres no explicit expression of it. Earlier that week, two more videos emerged from New York City of a man in Times Square stomping on a woman on her way to church; of a man punching and choking another man on the J train. Monthanus sat on her bed that evening with Eric and their 11-year-old son, Titus, Googling her fathers age and the cross street where she found the stain. Body camera footage of the encounter led officers to identify Watson and a female associate he was with at the time of the assault. In the next life, I hope Ill get to be your daughter again. But I dont want it to be like that. At Watsons bail hearing, Nawabi said he recognized the racial overtones of the case, but added, This false narrative that this is a targeted attack on the Asian community or an elderly man is misleading and prejudicial. He asked the court to order a neuropsychological evaluation and proposed releasing Watson to home confinement, where his family could look after him, along with requiring therapy and counseling, so that Watson wouldnt become another statistic in the criminal-justice world.. And the headlines were preoccupied with the trial of Derek Chauvin, the Minneapolis police officer convicted of murdering George Floyd. A petite 84-year-old with soft white hair, Vicha Ratanapakdee was a lifelong Buddhist, the kind of person who embraced the world with open arms. "Look, I believe in second chances. Or am I just sensitive? Chan shared a photo of the person he said attacked him, who appeared to be Black, with reporters. Any time a family suffers a violent crime, a homicide in particular, theres questions, Boudin told me. . Its not because we feel bad, Monthanus told me one evening while sitting on the bed where her father used to sleep, Titus playing video games nearby. Then Came a Brutal Attack. Mr. Vichas second shot was scheduled for Feb. 12, an appointment he would not live to make. 2023 CBS Broadcasting Inc. All Rights Reserved. For the past two years, Monthanus had started taking care of her parents more intensely, after her mother was diagnosed with dementia and her father with three clogged arteries. I met Monthanus one breezy afternoon in April at Wat Nagara Dhamma, a Buddhist temple outfitted inside a small two-story house across the street from Golden Gate Park. 2021, 19-year-old Antoine Watson, was just "having some sort of temper tantrum" when he killed him. Tuesday morning, San Francisco Mayor London Breed, Police Chief Bill Scott and District Attorney Chesa Boudin denounced the recent rise in violent crimes in the city, particularly the fatal assaults on Ratanapakdee and 76-year-old private investigator Jack Palladino. March 3, 2023 12:27 pm ET. It was heartbreaking. She shut the laptop and told Titus to leave the room. A web camera streamed the ceremony for friends and family abroad. . 84-year-old San Francisco resident Vicha Ratanapakdee was the target of the brazen and unprovoked daytime attack last Thursday morning. Monthanus and Eric posed for photos and signed a petition to recall Chesa Boudin, as people stopped to greet them with elbow bumps and condolences. Watson allegedly carried out the deadly attack on senior citizen Vicha Ratanapakdee in the citys Anza Vista neighborhood on January 28, 2021. Anyone can read what you share. Footage of the incident showed Ratanapakdee hitting his head on the pavement before sliding into a garage door. SAN FRANCISCO -- A suspect has been taken into custody following a deadly explosion and fire Thursday at a home in San Francisco's Sunset District that police said was being used as a clandestine drug lab.San Francisco police identified the suspect as 53-year-old Darron Price of San Francisco. Donations flooded into their GoFundMe page, and they blew past their goal of $10,000 within days. On January 28, 2021, 84-year-old Thai man Vicha Ratanapakdee was knocked to the pavement and killed in San Francisco's Anza Vista neighborhood. Anyone can read what you share. Months before the country went into lockdown, Russell Jeung, a professor of Asian American studies at San Francisco State University, came down with a bad case of the flu. February 8, 2021 / 3:17 PM I kept my promise, Dad, she said. When her mother saw the video, she stiffened. eventAction: 'render' Can I see my father? she asked. In March, Jeung says, Stop AAPI Hate received roughly 2,800 reports, about the same number he received in all of 2020. After Vicha died, Eric says, he saw so many videos, video after video of attacks in the news. She had even persuaded him to leave his wallet at home, at least for another few weeks, when he was scheduled for his second shot of the coronavirus vaccine. Another person claiming to be Vichas son had set up a fund-raiser in his name. Vicha was one of only a few people in the village who spoke English well, Mr. Surachai said. This is a hate crime.. The alleged killer is Daly City resident Antoine Watson, who was 19 at the time of the seemingly unprovoked sidewalk attack in the Anza Vista neighborhood. An 84-year-old man was killed after he was brutally attacked on a San Francisco street. she trailed off and let out a deep sigh. MonthanusRatanapakdee with her husband, Eric Lawson. . But he also suspects that the numbers reflect an animus that only deepened during lockdown. SF teen who killed 84-year-old man by shoving him to pavement pleads not guilty. }); gads_event = event; document.querySelector("#adunit").addEventListener('click',function(){ District Attorney responds to the . Before sitting down, he glanced toward the back of the room and smiled when he recognized a young man. ga('ads.send', { Intravenous lines and electrode patches linked his body to a constellation of machines and bags of fluid. The killing of Vicha was so plain as day, said Will Lex Ham, a New York-based actor, who after watching the video flew from New York to San Francisco to help lead protests and safety patrols in Asian neighborhoods. } Officers arrested Antoine Watson, 19, and his female companion . He always told me that if something happened to him, this must be passed on to grandchildren, she said. San Francisco police arrest man who filmed attack of elderly Asian man collecting recyclables, Man punches elderly woman in head as she walks and then plays the victim in shocking random attack in Brooklyn. Monthanus and Eric had been busy arranging her fathers funeral while fielding phone calls and messages from family, friends and strangers. An assailant, later identified by police as 19-year-old Antoine Watson, came barreling . There was no evidence depicted that the elderly man did anything to provoke the attack. The Department of Police stated that they identified Watson quickly. All rights reserved. His public defender, Sliman Nawabi, challenged the murder charge, arguing that Watson did not intend to kill Vicha. SAN FRANCISCOAntoine Watson, 19, who was arrested on January 30 for the deadly assault on an elderly man, 84-year-old Vicha Ratanapakdee, was held without bail after a court hearing on Monday, February 8. ga('ads.send', { Three monks carried piles of orchids and roses, a framed photo of Vicha and a forest green box holding his remains. Officers arrested Antoine Watson on Saturday after serving a warrant at a Daly City home. [1] [2] [3] The assault was captured on a CCTV camera . When Monthanus talked about these incidents, how the outside world didnt feel safe anymore, her father would ask, Is it really that bad? A judge in San Francisco ruled Friday that Antoine Watson will stand trial in the brutal death of 84-year-old Vicha Ratanapakdee. Left, Mr. Vicha holding his young daughter next to his wife. Crime data from the district attorney offices in San Francisco County and Alameda County, which includes Oakland, show that people of Asian descent were less likely last year to be victims of crimes than other ethnic groups. Monthanus didnt always agree with her father, but she loved his spirit. Mourners have left flowers and condolences by a garage door at the spot where Mr. Vicha was attacked in the Anza Vista neighborhood of San Francisco. One of the biggest flaws of hate-crime laws, she says, is their focus on punishment. For weeks, Monthanus Ratanapakdee urged her parents to please. Monthanus wore a black wool cloak over a pleated dress that flew up as the boat pulled away from the dock. Around 10 p.m., a new search result popped up. So we created our own website. (The California attorney generals office collects data on hate crimes in the state but not other cases involving verbal harassment, for example, which often dont constitute crimes.). But maybe were going to be hurt forever anyway.. Love you, dude. The young man repeated himself. eventCategory: event.slot.getSlotElementId(), stay inside. window.googletag.pubads().addEventListener('slotRenderEnded', function(event) { "I can't even imagine what his family is going through right now. In recent years, the Asian percentage of the Bayviews population has become five times as large as it was in 1980, while the Black share has shrunk by more than half. Boudin says Antoine Watson was . Considering him being 19 or even older now, he is no longer a child and is capable enough to keep his hands to himself. It's common sense, and we knew his intention. She added thatRatanapakdee's family was "horrified" when she relayed the information. ", When asked outside the courtroom what she wanted to see happen, Watson's grandmother said, "To see him walk out this door like I'm walking out right now.". When we go to the beach we can dream that he is with us., She plans to bring the other urn back to her fathers hometown in southern Thailand, where the local Buddhist temple has a stupa that holds the familys remains. 2023 CBS Broadcasting Inc. All Rights Reserved. The footage is grainy and brief: A tall figure suddenly darts across a street and slams into a much smaller one; the smaller figure crumples onto the pavement and doesnt get back up; the white baseball cap flutters to the ground, like a leaf falling from a tree. if(document.querySelector("#google_image_div")){ / CBS San Francisco. }); who was violently pushed and killed by Antoine Watson in . Who is Antoine Watson? Vicha Ratanapakdee, an 84-year old immigrant from Thailand, was preparing to go on his early morning walk in the quiet Anza Vista neighborhood of San Francisco on Saturday, January 28, 2021. That January, an old man yelled at her in Golden Gate Park something about a virus and going back to her country while she watched her sons, then 10 and 7, run in a playground. And these memories, the sense of injustice that still lingered in them, overlapped with other histories still. a 91-year-old shoved to the ground in Chinatown in Oakland, Calif., a white gunman in the Atlanta area drove to several businesses and shot eight people to death. During the pandemic, Vicha usually left the house before 8 a.m. and made it back before his grandsons started their Zoom classes. At the first rally, a month earlier in March, several hundred people gathered here in support of her family. There may be a logic behind that. Weitere Informationen ber die Verwendung Ihrer personenbezogenen Daten finden Sie in unserer Datenschutzerklrung und unserer Cookie-Richtlinie. Eric and Monthanus being interviewed by a local TV station outside the Hall of Justice in San Francisco in July. Antoine turned around and smiled again, until the door closed on him. In reference to the alleged attacker Antoine Watson, Boudin told the Times that "It appears that the defendant was in some sort of a temper tantrum." . eventCategory: event.slot.getSlotElementId(), "New state funding allows the data gathering to continue, and the research will ultimately lead us to solutions that will make all communities safer.". Evan Sernoffsky reports. Vicha and Jintana Ratanapakdee on their wedding day in 1970. a mob descended on the Capitol early that month, Family of 84-Year-Old Killed in S.F. As they waited for Antoines hearing to start, Monthanus and Eric watched from the front row of the gallery as the judge heard a series of other cases. Ratanapakdeewas walking in the city's Anza Vista neighborhood on the morning of Jan.28 when he was violently shoved to the ground in whatBoudinreferred to as "a horrific, senseless attack". Monthanus and Eric voted for him. CALIFORNIADA RESPONDS TO ATTACKS AGAINST ELDERLY ASIANS, AS ACTIVISTS CLAIM CORONAVIRUS PANDEMIC TO BLAME, A spokesperson for Boudin clarified that his comment was made "regardingMr. Watsons behavior prior to the murder" and that Boudin "charged the killing of Mr. Ratanapakdee as a murder, the most serious crime on the books.". He has pled not guilty to charges of murder and elder abuse causing death. He left his home because of a family dispute and got in a traffic accident in San Francisco at 2 a.m. Editor's note: In the wake of numerous incidents of anti-Asian assaults and increasing concern over violent crime in San Francisco, . The grandmother of a teen who senselessly pushed and killed a Thai grandfather has said her grandson should walk free. Several young people carried signs with an illustration of a 75-year-old Chinese woman who, a few weeks earlier, was punched by a white man and then fought back by whacking him with a wooden board. The streets were quiet. Asian Americans in San Francisco are leading the campaign to recall the city's far-left District Attorney Chesa Boudin on June 7. . While it does not change the legal definition of a hate crime, the legislation commits funds to fast-track federal reviews of hate-crime investigations and approves grants for local law enforcement agencies. Wans group, Community Youth Center, responded by opening a new office in Bayview-Hunters Point, where the attacks occurred. His comments tugged at a bigger, messier debate about race that had been building around the attacks. In the absence of any sense of resolution, the couple began searching for clues on their own. eventAction: 'load' In each instance, the bystanders appeared to do nothing. She wasnt sure if Troy even knew what was happening. She wanted to be strong for her sons, but she had trouble sleeping at night and broke into tears unexpectedly. Amanda Nguyen, a prominent activist, shared Sernoffskys report in a viral Instagram video, along with two others, one about a 64-year-old Vietnamese woman who was robbed in San Jose and another about a 61-year-old Filipino man whose face was slashed with a box cutter on the New York subway. They said they didnt have the capacity to track racism, Jeung says. For Mr. Vicha, who stood 5 feet 6 inches and weighed 113 pounds, the attack was fatal. To fully appreciate the challenges that Wan and Lacoste face requires understanding the forces that have shaped that neighborhood, and many others, over decades redlining and employment discrimination, the long shadow of multiple tech booms, the burden of street violence, inadequate mental-health care, surging homelessness, the police response to all of it. Through her organization, Hollins, who lost two brothers to homicide in the last decade, assists victims of crime and lobbies to increase support services provided by the state. San Francisco News, Restaurants . Ratanapakdee's head hit the pavement as he fell. Watson can be seen running up to Ratanapakdee and violently shoving him in video from SF CBS Local near the corner of Fortuna and Anza Vista. An anti-hate rally outside the San Francisco civic center this month. The man had accepted a plea agreement for domestic-violence charges, and afterward his victim asked the judge if she could say a few words. Monthanus ran to her fathers side and held his hand. She remains puzzled why on the morning of the attack he left without his Buddhist amulet, a talisman of protection that he always wore around his neck. She was a Thai immigrant living in Alameda a diverse town, she said. Ratanapakdee died after sustaining severe injuries. Vicha Ratanapakdee as he is knocked to the ground Thursday by an attacker later identified as 19-year-old Antoine Watson in San Francisco, at left, and Vicha in an undated photo, at right. "Our officers identified our suspect as 19-year-old Antoine Watson of Daly City. }); He often lightened the mood after she argued with her husband, teasing that his daughter talked too much. ), The next morning, Eric called the tip lines for several local news stations and left messages for reporters, inviting them to the Hall of Justice, where he and Monthanus were scheduled to meet with homicide detectives. Antoine Watson of Daly City, age 21, was arrested for Murder Assault w/Deadly Weapon Or Assault w/Force Likely To Produce GBI Elder Or Dependent Adult Abuse in San Francisco County, California on January 30, 2021 by San Francisco County Sheriff.