A Chinese man collecting bottles and cans was stomped and kicked in the head, part of a wave of assaults on Asian New Yorkers.
The man suspected of assaulting a 61-year-old Asian immigrant in East Harlem on Friday night, leaving him on a ventilator and in a coma, was arrested and charged with a hate crime on Tuesday, the police said.
The victim, Yao Pan Ma, was pushing a grocery cart full of bottles and cans near 125th Street and Third Avenue when he was attacked suddenly from behind and collapsed onto the sidewalk, the police said.
A video released by the Police Department showed Mr. Ma’s attacker stomping on his head and kicking him multiple times in the face before running away, the authorities said. He remained in a coma and on a ventilator after the attack, his wife, Baozhen Chen, told local news outlets.
The suspect, Jarrod Powell, 49, was arrested and charged with attempted murder and two counts of assault as a hate crime. The police initially said they had charged Mr. Powell with two counts of assault, but they upgraded the charges on Tuesday afternoon.
The attack brought a new wave of fear and anger after a number of similar unprovoked assaults on Asian New Yorkers in recent months.
Reports of hate crimes targeting Asian-Americans have increased sharply across the country since the coronavirus pandemic began last year, when former President Donald J. Trump repeatedly used anti-Asian slurs to refer to the virus in an effort to link it to China.
Law enforcement officials nationwide have said that attackers in some cases have used language falsely blaming Asian-Americans for spreading the virus.
The New York Police Department had received 66 reports of anti-Asian hate crimes this year as of last Sunday, the most recent day for which data was available, a spokeswoman said. That’s more than five times the 12 incidents reported in the same period last year, and more than double the 28 recorded in all of 2020.
Police officials have said that more victims appeared to be reporting anti-Asian attacks than in the past. Community advocates have said that anti-Asian crimes have long been underreported because of language barriers and distrust of the police.
Experts testifying at a congressional hearing on anti-Asian discrimination last month said attacks targeting Asian-Americans had increased nearly 150 percent nationwide in the past year. Last week, the Senate passed a bill that would boost federal, state and local efforts to address such attacks.
But many incidents, in New York City and elsewhere, have not led to arrests or have not been charged as hate crimes. Asian-American leaders have expressed outrage, questioning whether assaults against Asian victims were being overlooked by law-enforcement agencies.
In New York State, to charge attacks like the one against Mr. Ma as hate crimes, prosecutors must show that the victims were targeted because of their race. Experts have said that proving a racist motive can be particularly difficult in attacks against Asians, in part because there is no widely recognized symbol of anti-Asian hate.
Last month, a Filipino-American woman walking to church was shoved to the ground and kicked. Footage of the attack went viral, and her assailant was charged with a hate crime after investigators determined that he shouted disparaging racist remarks at her.
But hate-crime charges have not been brought in several other incidents involving victims like her and Mr. Ma — middle-aged New Yorkers who were alone on the streets or riding public transit.
On Monday, before Mr. Powell’s arrest, a police spokesman said surveillance camera footage suggested that Mr. Ma and his attacker had not interacted before the assault, leading detectives to believe Mr. Ma may have been targeted because of his race.
A police spokesman would not provide more details about what led officials to charge Mr. Powell with a hate crime, citing the ongoing investigation.
The increase in attacks has been particularly troubling in New York City, where people of Asian descent make up an estimated 14 percent of the population and which has been a longtime hub for Asian immigrants seeking to start new lives in the United States.
Mr. Ma and Ms. Chen were among them, she told The Daily News. The couple moved to New York City in 2019 from China’s Guangdong province, leaving their two adult children behind.
A pastry chef in China, Mr. Ma was able to secure work at a Chinatown restaurant, Ms. Chen said. But he lost his job because of the pandemic’s crushing effects on the economy and was not eligible for benefits, so he began collecting bottles and cans in a shopping cart as a way to bring in extra money.
“He was just trying to help out the family,” Ms. Chen told The Daily News, speaking in Cantonese. “He had no bad intentions. He wouldn’t cause trouble with other people in his neighborhood.”
Ms. Chen, who works as a home health care aide, said that Mr. Ma typically called her when he got home. She worried when she didn’t hear from him on Friday night. When she called his phone, the police picked up.
“I am very worried my husband will not make it,” she told The New York Post.
Jonah E. Bromwich and Ali Watkins contributed reporting.
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