A woman wearing a face mask was attacked at a Chinatown subway station after allegedly being called a “diseased bitch” — in what police are treating as a possible hate crime sparked by coronavirus fears.
Shocking video shared by the NYPD’s hate crimes unit shows a violent confrontation involving a woman with her face completely covered by a yellow face mask, glasses and the hood of a parka.
An eyewitness claimed the victim had already been hit on the head when she ran to confront her attacker — who unleashed a flurry of blows after missing with a flying kick, eventually pushing her into a wall.
“Don’t f—ing touch me! Don’t f—ing touch me, n—er,” the attacker screams as the woman shooting the video tries to pull him away.
He had first confronted the victim over her face mask, according to a social media post by the woman who says she shot the footage at Grand Street station at 6 p.m. Sunday.
“I clearly heard the words ‘diseased bitch,'” @x_ginko insisted in her post. “I also heard her asking him to go away.”
Instead, the man “suddenly got very close to the woman’s face” and “hit her on the head with an audible sound,” @x_ginko insisted, saying she then started recording.
“What I didn’t expect was for the victim to chase after him,” she said, with the woman seemingly holding a glass bottle before the “guy started attacking her.”
“So ultimately, both parties had a fault, but the situation escalated with racial tension,” @x_ginko said.
“I’m not sure if the woman was Asian or not, she was wearing a face mask and glasses, so I couldn’t tell,” she wrote.
She later tweeted that the victim “had a bloody lip [and] a slight abrasion on her forehead” after the attack but did not want help.
The videographer said she “acted out of instinct” to try to stop the violence — furious that others stood by and watched.
“Doesn’t it suck that it ended up being me who acted, A 4’11” SMALL ASS GIRL in a station full of stronger, taller, more comparable able bodied men and women who did absolutely nothing? Bystander effect is truly terrifying,” she said.
“It’s incredible how much hysteria the Coronavirus news has created, please be safe out there y’all,” @x_ginko added. “Wearing a mask in NYC right now marks you as a target. please be careful, and stand up for your friends.”
The NYPD said a complaint had yet to be filed, but the force’s hate crimes unit shared the clip in an appeal for the victim to come forward.
“The NYPD and the Hate Crime Task Force encourage the victim to report this incident to the police for a full investigation,” the force tweeted along with the clip.
“The hope is a family member or the individual sees this and says, ‘Oh, I should report this now.’ Enough traction has been made by the public,” a spokesperson said.
