A racist provocation in Russian Hill was caught on video that showed three Chinese-American nonprofit workers being harassed by a passerby, and the passerby now faces assault and hate crime charges.
A March 28 confrontation in Russian Hill did not make the local news at the time. But now that SF DA Brooke Jenkins is filing charges, the SF Standard directs us to a video posted four days later by the Chinese-language news outlet Sky Link TV Cantonese News. As seen below, a man can be heard shouting, “You want to see me sock you? You want to see me grab your ass?”, then grabbing one of the three men’s backpacks and yelling, “I will fuck you up!” and mocking Chinese language patterns.
We can tell this is at Van Ness Avenue and Vallejo Streets, as the restaurant Wasabi & Ginger can be seen in the background. The three Chinese-American men who were accosted were reportedly on-duty workers for the nonprofit Self-Help for the Elderly, and the Standard reports one of the men says the suspect yelled at them, “Chinese are useless,” “Chinese are soft” and “Go back to your country.”
Anti-Asian hate crimes are unacceptable, and these baseless attacks have absolutely no place on our streets in San Francisco.
Hate crimes shake our communities and have reverberating effects felt in neighborhoods across the City. https://t.co/3EmmMeGSDv
— Brooke Jenkins 謝安宜 (@BrookeJenkinsSF) April 9, 2024
We now know the man who accosted them is allegedly SF resident Anell Medrano, because KPIX reports that SF DA Jenkins has announced hate crime charges against Medrano. He’s also charged with assault with a deadly weapon.
The release from Jenkins’s office says Medrano’s bail was set at $50,000, though he remains in custody, and Jenkins’s release says they will seek continued pre-trial custody.
If you have any information on this incident, you’re asked to call the SFPD tip line at (415) 575-4444,…
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