An Air Force veteran is speaking out about the day he was attacked a week ago in Koreatown, an incident police are now investigating as a hate crime.
Denny Kim, 27, tells ABC4 he was called racist anti-Asian slurs by two men who threatened to kill him.
"I was terrified for my life, as you can see the physical injuries on my face," Kim said. "And I didn’t know what to think of it. It was all just a blur...I was just trying to defend my life."
Kim was given a black eye and a fractured nose during the unprovoked attack, and only thanks to a friend did the video end.
"Started calling me 'ching chong' ... 'Chinese virus' ... All sorts of nasty stuff. They eventually struck me on my face. I fell down to the ground."
Joseph Cha, Kim's friend, and a community activist tells ABC4, "I was screaming, telling them to stop. Screaming, they were calling me racial slurs too."
The Air Force vet said says he will be joining a growing anti-Asian racism movement, bringing awareness to the 3.000 hate incidents reported directed at Asian Americans since the start of the pandemic.
On February 18, a suspect was arrested after he allegedly threw a box and then shoved a 52-year-old Asian American woman in New York City on Tuesday.
In a security video, which ended up going viral, Patrick Mateo was seen approaching a woman, allegedly shoving her and causing her to fall down and hit her head, and get 10 stitches in her head. The woman was in line at a store in Flushing.
"The woman's daughter, Maggie Kayla Cheng, in a post on Facebook, said her mom was pushed “with such force that she hit her head on the concrete and passed out on the floor," according to an NBC New York story.