NEW YORK (1010 WINS) – The NYPD’s Asian Hate Crimes Task Force is investigating video that shows a group of men restraining and beating a man at a Lower Manhattan subway station over the weekend.
The task force tweeted about the attack Sunday evening, writing that "a group of men attacked a man earlier this weekend."
The video, filmed at the Fulton Street station around 3:30 p.m. Friday, shows one man holding the victim, who appears to be of Asian descent, as another man says, “I’m practicing how I’m going to do it.”
“I’ve got a daughter,” the attacker says. “If the cops lock me up, I’m paying my own bail.”
The man then slaps the victim, who appears to briefly go limp.
A second man then walks up and pummels the victim repeatedly in the face as he continues to be restrained.
The men in the video seem to relish in the beating, laughing and joking as they assault the man and onlookers cheer.
The exact circumstances leading up to the assault are unclear.
A Twitter user who posted the full-length video claimed that the three men stopped the victim from sexually assaulting a girl.
The witness, who did not want to be recorded, told 1010 WINS that he saw the man, who appeared to be intoxicated, being held on the A train platform. The man holding him told the witness that he and another man had stopped him from assaulting the girl on an A train.
The witness then called police, but he didn't start recording until about 20 minutes later after he said the man seemingly admitted to the crime, responding, "So what?" when confronted about it.
That's when the two men came up, with one slapping and the other punching the man, the witness said. The man who was holding the victim told the men to "chill," according to the witness.
The witness said officers couldn’t arrest the man being held because there was no victim complaint. And the men who slapped and punched him had already taken off by the time officers arrived, he said.
A user on Reddit said that story was completely false. In fact, the user said, the man being beaten had stopped the others from assaulting the girl before he himself was attacked.
Police have not confirmed either account of events.
State Sen. John Liu called the beating “a disgusting act,” no matter what led up to it.
“If one person commits a crime—if in fact that happened—that doesn’t entitle more people to commit additional crimes,” Liu said.
Assemblymember Ron Kim said regardless of what the victim did or didn't do, the beating was uncalled for.
“The scene itself that has gone around, it further normalizes this notion that it’s okay to hold down and attack an Asian person,” Kim said.
The assemblymember said police have since identified the victim.
Anyone with information is asked to call the NYPD's Crime Stoppers hotline at 1-800-577-TIPS.
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