Asian man, 61, assaulted in New York in critical but stable condition

NEW YORK • A 61-year-old Asian man who was assaulted in East Harlem last Friday night while pushing a grocery cart full of bottles and cans is in critical but stable condition, police say, another victim in a rising wave of attacks against Asians in New York City.

The man - identified by local media outlets and elected officials as Mr Ma Yao Pan, a Chinese immigrant - was in a coma and on a ventilator after the attack, his wife Chen Baozhen told The New York Daily News on Monday.

Mr Ma was at the corner of 125th Street and Third Avenue around 8pm when a man dressed in black approached and hit him in the back, police said. He collapsed on the pavement.

A video released by the police department showed Mr Ma lying unmoving as his attacker stomped on his head with white sneakers and kicked him multiple times in the face before running away.

A bus driver who was passing by spotted Mr Ma unconscious on the ground and called for paramedics.

The city's police department, which was still searching for Mr Ma's attacker on Monday, said that officers were investigating the assault as a possible hate crime.

The brutal assault came as reports of anti-Asian hate crimes mount in New York City and across the United States.

The sharp rise has been particularly troubling in New York City, where people of Asian descent make up an estimated 14 per cent of the population, with the city a long-time hub for Asian immigrants seeking to start new lives in the United States.

Mr Ma and Ms Chen were among them, she told The Daily News. The couple moved to New York City in 2019 from China's Guangdong province, leaving their two adult children behind.

Mr Ma, who was a pastry chef in China, was able to secure work at a Chinatown restaurant, Ms Chen said. But he lost his job because of the pandemic's crushing effects on the economy and was not eligible for benefits, so he began collecting bottles and cans in a shopping cart as a way to bring in extra money.

"He was just trying to help out the family," she told The Daily News, speaking in Cantonese. "He had no bad intentions. He wouldn't cause trouble with other people in his neighbourhood."

Ms Chen, who works as a home healthcare aide, said that Mr Ma typically called her when he got home. She got worried when she did not hear from him on Friday night. When she called his phone, the police picked up.

"I am very worried my husband will not make it," she told The New York Post.

NYTIMES