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A Florida woman faces hate crimes after authorities said she insulted a group of women with anti-Asian remarks and attacked them with pepper spray in New York last week.
The New York Police Department said on Friday it had arrested 47-year-old Madeleine Barker after the incident, which was partially videotaped.
The victims told ABC7 in New York that they were walking in the Maitpacking area of Manhattan around 6 pm on June 11, when a woman accused them of harassing her. The victims said they had not had previous interactions with the woman, but tried to reassure her by apologizing. In response, the assailant pulled out a box of pepper spray and shouted at them, “Go back to where you came from, you don’t belong here,” one victim told ABC7.
She sprayed four women with pepper solution and shouted at an Asian man walking down the sidewalk to bring women back “where you came from” using swear words, a police spokesman told CNN.
The victims refused medical help on the spot, police said.
A video from the New York Post shows a woman dressed in a bright fuchsia running after a woman and spraying her from behind as she walks away.
The NYPD’s Hate Crimes Task Force has published photos of the woman in fuchsia last week, he then tweeted that he had made an arrest “thanks to the help of daily New Yorkers.”
Barker, of Merritt Island, Florida, was charged Saturday with three counts of assault as a hate crime, one count of attempted assault as a hate crime and four counts of aggravating harassment, according to a criminal complaint filed by the Manhattan District Attorney’s Office. . When a still photo from the video was shown, Barker admitted to being the woman in the incident, according to the complaint.
San Francisco police record 567% increase in reports of anti-Asian hate crimes in 2021
Barker was detained on $ 20,000 bail Sunday afternoon, prison records show, and her next court appearance is scheduled for Thursday.
Her public defender did not immediately respond to a request for comment Sunday afternoon.
Hate crimes against Americans of Asian descent have risen sharply since the beginning of the coronavirus pandemic. In New York, hate crimes against Asia jumped 357 percent between 2020 and 2021, according to New York police.
The murder of Christina Yuna Lee “hits so close to home” for Asian American women in New York
Despite legislative efforts to step up investigations into hate crimes, violence has not subsided in 2022. This year, two popular killings of Asian American women in New York have rocked Asian communities there.
In January, Michelle Alice, 40, was pushed into the subway tracks at Times Square Station.
In February, a man chased Christina Yuna Lee, 35, to her Manhattan apartment and stabbed her to death.
Later that month, it is alleged that a man attacked seven Asian women in two hours on a 30-block stretch in Manhattan. He has been charged with 13 counts of hate crimes.
The recent killings of Asian American women are forcing Asians abroad to rethink their relationship with the United States
K-pop group BTS appeared at the White House last month to raise awareness of the rise of anti-Asian hate crimes, targeting women and the elderly in particular.
Amanda Nguyen, chief executive of the civil rights NGO Rise, told The Washington Post Live in March that “the intersection of race and gender is something we can’t ignore.”
“Unfortunately, these acts of violence that were directed at the Asian American community, especially women, existed before Covid,” she said. “The pandemic has exacerbated these problems, especially when we had leaders who said things like ‘Chinese virus’ or ‘Chinese flu.’
Rise Founder and CEO Amanda Nguyen Joins Washington Post Live (Video: The Washington Post)
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