Attacks against Asian Americans continue to surge across the U.S.; slashing in SF, a hammer attack in NYC, dismemberment in Indiana

Hate violence against Asian Americans has sparked demonstrations across the country.
Above, a recent demonstration in Los Angeles.

CORRECTION: Edited  May 5, 9 a.m. to reflect the correct days of the attacks.

Attacks against Asian Americans continue to occur at alarming rates despite the unprecedented coverage given to the issue by mainstream media and denouncements from President Biden.

The extremely violent hate incidents in 16 U.S. cities exploded 164% during the first quarter of 2021, according to a new report by the Center for the Study of Hate and Extremism at California State University, San Bernardino.

Three recent violent apparently unprovoked attacks occurred on throughout the  nation emphasizing the continuing violence Asian Americans are facing while going about their everyday lives.

• In San Francisco, two Asian American elderly women were stabbed Tuesday while waiting at a bus stop. One of the victims, an 85-year old woman was rushed to a hospital for surgery.

• On Sunday, in New York City, two Asian American women were assaulted by a woman wielding a hammer, sending one to the hospital. One of the victims had to be hospitalized for lacerations.

• On April 23, a 55-year old Vietnamese immigrant was killed and his body dismembered in Fort Wayne, Indiana.

The report last week from San Bernardino CSU was based on the reported attacks in 16 of the country's most populous cities. 

"These preliminary data show that in those large cities with the longest history of collecting anti-Asian reports, there are elevated or increasing levels of hate crime extending well into 2021,"  Brian Levin, director of the Center for the Study of Hate and Extremism, told Vox. "We already have more hate crimes in the first quarter of 2021 in these cities than in all of pre-pandemic 2019. And in some, more than all of 2020." 

New York City showed the greatest increase and the greatest number of attacks, a 223% increase; 42 hate incidents compared 13 during the same period last year.

ABC reports that the 31-year old victim of the hammer attack was walking with her friend, another Asian American woman, in midtown Manhattan on Sunday when a woman attacked them from behind.

"She was talking to herself, like talking to a wall. I thought maybe she was drunk or something," the victim, who only wanted to be identified by her first name Theresa, told ABC New York station WABC. "So we just wanted to pass through her quickly. She saw us and said 'Take off your f----- mask.'"

Theresa was taken to a hospital for a laceration to her head, according to the police.

Police are still searching for the suspect.

On the opposite side of the country, the knife attack happened around 7 p.m. Tuesday, May 4, as two elderly women, ages 65 and 85, were waiting for a bus in downtown San Francisco.

Sources told ABC7 News that one of the women was badly bleeding, and the other still had a knife in her arm.

A Vietnamese man, Shane Nguyen, 55, was found dead in a crashed car in Fort Wayne, Indiana on April 25. His body was dismembered and two men have been charged with his gruesome homicide.

A Gofundme has been setup to help Nguyen’s family during this devastating time.

Other attacks occurred this past week include:

• Sixteen-year old Earl Estrella was shot and killed as he answered his door in Seattle, April 23.. Police continue to seek the suspect and no motive was given for the deadly attack.

• Carl Chan, president of the Oakland's Chinatown Chamber of Commerce was badly beaten in Chinatown. A suspect has been arrested. Police say 25-year-old Oakland resident James Lee Ramsey is being charged with a hate crime.

The attacks are the latest in a year-long surge of violence

 targeting Asian Americans. The surge of anti-Asian attacks coincide with the pandemic that has raged around the world killing millions of people. As the pandemic began, Donald Trump and his administration began using racist rhetoric linking the coronavirus to China. Bigots, unable to distinguish between Chinese, Chinese Americans and other Asian American groups began blaming the virus on all Asians.

#StopAAPIHate, a community-based group, began to collect reports of hate incidents.. According to their website, almost 4,000 incidents of hate have occurred since in the year they've been collecting the reports.

The mass shooting in Georgia that killed six Asian women last March is being linked to the rise in anti-Asian bigotry even though police have not labeled it a hate crime.

According to the CSU study, big cities with large populationss of Asian American residents, like New York City and San Francisco and better outreach to those communities were more likely to have higher reports of hate crime incidents.

California State University Professor Brian Levin, who co-authored the hate crime study, told CBS News that while some of the rise in reported incidents can be attributed to greater cultural awareness of the issue, the rise in anti-Asian hate crimes is still a "phenomenon in the Asian American community that is of historic significance."