Arrest made in filmed attack on Asian couple in Tacoma
A teenage boy was arrested Friday in connection with a filmed attack on an Asian couple that Tacoma police have been investigating as a hate crime.
The investigation began after a video of the November attack recently surfaced on social media.
A 15-year-old boy was arrested for the assault. He has been charged as a juvenile with second-degree assault. Pierce County Superior Court records state the boy was 14 at the time of the incident.
The assaulted couple filed a police report Nov. 19, but it made no mention of the attack being racially motivated, police said.
The video shows an older couple walking on the sidewalk when a young man runs up to them and repeatedly punches the man. The woman calls out for help in Korean and one of the attackers can be heard saying, “Gotcha.”
The couple’s daughter came forward this week after seeing the video of the attack.
The teenager, who was 14 at the time of the assault, was arraigned in juvenile court.
Charging papers give this account of what happened:
The 52-year-old woman and 56-year-old man were walking behind a grocery store near South 19th Street and South Tyler Street when the teenager assaulted them. They didn’t know the 14-year-old, and the assault wasn’t provoked. Another male and two females were with him at the time.
The 52-year-old “stated that she had no reason to believe the assault was based on her ethnicity but rather the fact that her and her husband were older or vulnerable, she did not know if any racial slurs were used during the assault,” the declaration for determination of probable cause said.
Her husband also told police he did not think race was a factor in the assault.
“No terminology was used to make him believe the assault was based on his race or culture,” the probable cause statement said.
Her husband said he saw the group come through a fence along the store. The suspect walked up and intentionally bumped into him.
“After the suspect bumped into him, the suspect attempted to sweep his leg out from underneath him, falling down himself in the process,” the probable cause statement said.
When the man tried to help the teenager up, he said the teenager started punching him. The man backed up, fell, then got up and tried to protect his wife by getting in front of her, he said.
“He recalled the suspect boasting to him that he himself was ‘bad,’” the probable cause statement said.
Then he said the teenager hit him again, and he and his friends ran off.
The husband suffered a broken rib and was uncomfortable for a couple months. His job as a chef requires him to stand often, and he said it’s sometimes hard to get out of bed.
The man said the way the suspect filmed the assault made it seem planned.
Staff writer Alexis Krell contributed to this report.
This story was originally published April 2, 2021 at 5:58 PM.
