A 16-year-old girl has been arrested in Manhattan for allegedly assaulting an Asian woman who was traveling with her family on a subway train, and a bystander who recorded the incident in a now-viral video.
The teen is accused of assaulting Sue Young, 51, who was visiting from Nevada with her husband and two children, and Joanna Lin—who filmed the teen and her two friends berating the family—on an F train near West 14th Street on Aug. 6.
A brawl eventually erupted as bystanders intervened to prevent the family from being attacked, and when Ms. Lin attempted to record again, the girl hit her on the head.
“The girl ran over and dragged me by the hair to the floor and hit me a few times on the head until I was able to roll away,” Ms. Lin stated in the video.
Later on, Ms. Lin took to her Instagram stories to explain the situation on behalf of Ms. Young. She shared that the incident happened when the trio started pointing and laughing at her family “out of nowhere.”
Ms. Young’s twin daughters, aged 11, told their mother that the trio was making fun of her sitting posture. But their “demeanors changed and the F-bombs started flying” when Ms. Young decided to laugh along.
The NYPD previously investigated the case as a possible hate crime. However, no hate crime charges were filed against the teen as the victims claimed they did not perceive the attack to be motivated by their race.
“I want everyone to see that we can bridge this, that maybe there’s good in those girls. And I want something positive to come out, instead of just throwing them in jail,” Ms. Young told the news outlet.
