A 25-year-old Corona man was been arrested Saturday on suspicion of assaulting an elderly Korean American couple and threatening a Japanese American Olympian in Orange.
Michael Vivona faces hate crime charges of elder abuse and making criminal threats.
Officials from the Orange Police Department have not identified any of the victims, but Vivona appears to look very similar to a man who U.S. Olympian and karate athlete Sakura Kokumai alleges she was harassed and berated with anti-Asian slurs while she was at a park on April 1.
Kokumai says the worst part of the racist experience was that no one stopped to help her as the man began yelling at her and threatening her during his outburst.
“In that moment, I thought, ‘gosh, this guy is just crazy.’ But when I zoomed out I realized there were a lot of people at the park,” Kokumai wrote in an Instagram post. “Yes a women did come up and asked if I was ok towards the end as it escalated…but for the longest time no one cared. People would walk by, some even smiled. And I didn’t know what to do.”
Vivona is being held on $65,000 bail and is scheduled to make his court appearance Wednesday.