NEW YORK (1010 WINS/WCBS 880) – A 16-year-old girl was arrested after a Nevada woman was beaten on a Greenwich Village subway train and her family subjected to anti-Asian vitriol, police said Wednesday.
The teen, who was not identified because of her age, was arrested Tuesday morning and charged with two counts of assault at the Sixth Precinct stationhouse.
While the attack had been investigated as a potential anti-Asian hate crime, hate crime charges were ultimately not filed because both victims reportedly told cops they didn't believe it was motivated by hate.
Her arrest came just a day after the NYPD released images from a viral video showing the attack unfold at 8 p.m. last Thursday on a busy southbound F train near the West Fourth Street–Washington Square.
Sue Young, 51, her husband and their two young daughters were sitting on the train when three teen girls began to verbally harass them with expletives and anti-Asian slurs.
"It was just insult, after insult, after insult," Young told WCBS-TV.
"All I could think of was just to protect my head," she told PIX11. "I didn't want to get injured. And so I pulled her head and I buried my face in there so she couldn't hit it. But my two girls said that they saw the other teens come and pin me down onto the bench."
Young wasn't the only person who was attacked, police said. A bystander, Joanna Lin, started recording the assault and was also targeted by the teen.
"She ran over, grabbed me by the hair, threw me on the ground and started punching me several times," Lin said. "It shouldn't happen."
Lin said she knows martial arts and was able to deflect some of the blows and call 911.
Young suffered cuts and bruises to her head from the attack. She said she wants the teens to be punished but doesn't want the incident to follow them forever.
The attack caught the attention of Queens Rep. Grace Meng, who retweeted video of the confrontation and wrote, "This is such disrespectful and obnoxious behavior. Grateful for bystanders who stepped in to protect this family and to help file a police report."
It's just the latest suspected anti-Asian attack in the subway in recent weeks, with a man pummeled at the Queensboro Plaza station in Long Island City and a woman spit on at the Bergen Street station in Park Slope.
The teens fled at the West Fourth Street stop, police said.
No other arrests have been reported in the case.
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