LITTLE OLS ASIAN WOMAN SENDS ATTACKER TO THE HOSPITAL

Who is Xiao Zhen Xie? San Francisco woman, 75, fights off 'bum' and leaves him bloodied as he hits her in eye

 

 

By Kunal Dey 

 

MEAWW News

March 18, 2021

 

SAN FRANCISCO, CALIFORNIA: An elderly woman reportedly became the latest victim in a wave of attacks on Asians in the Bay Area after she was allegedly attacked on Market Street, in San Francisco, on Wednesday, March 17. However, she managed to defend herself and left her assailant with injuries that required him to be hospitalized instead.

 

Xiao Zhen Xie has to be restrained from continuing to beat up the 'bum' who attacked her

 

Speaking to KPIX 5 from her retirement home in San Francisco, 75-year-old Xiao Zhen Xie revisited the attack and the injuries she sustained. Her daughter Dong-Mei Li helped translate what she was saying. “Very traumatized, very scared and this eye is still bleeding,” Li told the station. “The right eye still cannot see anything and still bleeding and we have something to absorb the bleeding.”

Zhen Xie, an Asian-American, has reportedly been residing in San Francisco for 26 years and was understandably quite shaken up after the alleged unprovoked attack. She recalled how her immediate instinct was to fight back. Zhen Xie was reportedly waiting at the traffic light when the suspect, reported to be 39-years-old, allegedly socked her in the left eye. Zhen Xie claimed she had been leaning against a light pole when the man, who hasn't been identified, allegedly punched her without provocation. She recalls that she immediately defended herself from further assault and eventually sent her alleged attacker to the ER on a stretcher. “She found the stick around the area and fought back," her daughter told KPIX 5

 

The 39-year-old 'bun' is cuffed to a stretcher before being taken to a hospital

 

According to the report, Zhen Xie is unable to see out of her left eye and hasn't been able to eat. The family is hoping that her wounds will be healed with time, but the incident has left her emotionally scarred for life. “As you can see she is extremely terrified. She’s terrified to even step out," Zhen Xie’s grandson John Chen told the outlet. The family has since set up a GoFundMe page with a goal of $50,000 to help cover medical expenses. At the time of writing the campaign has collected $25,084. 

The alleged aggravated assault, which took place at Market St. and Charles J. Brenham Place near McAllister St. at around 10:30 am is being investigated by San Francisco police. “There was a guy on a stretcher and a frustrated angry woman with a stick in her hand,” one witness told KPIX 5. Zhen Xie appeared to have sustained an injury to the side of her face and eye area. She was seen holding an ice pack to her face following the assault before paramedics took both the assailant and the victim to a hospital for treatment.

Witnesses told the station how they saw the woman beating her assailant, who was later seen on video handcuffed to a stretcher with his face bloodied. “You bum, why did you hit me?” the sobbing victim was heard asking her assailant as he's being taken away. “This bum, he hit me,” she later told the crowd of people who had gathered. “He hit me, this bum,“ she was heard repeating in Chinese as she continued sobbing.

“The woman said that she was hit,” one witness told KPIX 5. “She attacked back. From what I could see, she wanted more of the guy on the stretcher and the police were holding her back.”

Authorities are yet to disclose a motive for the allegedly unprovoked attack and it's unclear whether the victim's race had anything to do with it. ABC 7 reports this attack happened just minutes after the assailant allegedly attacked another Asian man in the area. The reports states that police had been called to the area after an attack on an 83-year-old Asian man. The suspect was running away from a security guard on foot when he came upon the woman and allegedly assaulted her.

The matter is being scrutinized closely after a mass shooting in Atlanta on March 16, while was perceived to be a hate crime because most of the victims were Asian women at massage parlors. However, 21-year-old Robert Aaron Long, the shooter, told police that he was trying to eliminate "temptation," and that he targeted massage parlors because they preyed upon his "sexual addiction." Still, many continue to call the shootings a hate crime and an act of domestic terrorism.