A young Thai American bartender, who was pepper-sprayed as suspects yelled “Go back to your country,” believes she was victimized twice: once during the attack, and then again at the San Francisco District Attorney’s office, which refused to charge the incident as a hate crime.
Kunni, the victim, has a video of the incident, which occurred during a late night shift at the bar she works in San Francisco’s Tenderloin district. She has presented prosecutors with the video, along with witness statements which indicate a racially-motivated attack.
But, she said, prosecutors ignored both, saying there was insufficient evidence to charge a hate crime. Kunni requested a jury trial, but, she said, the District Attorney’s office discouraged her from that as well. Her attacker was arrested, but bailed out and is now free without charges. She lives in the neighborhood in which Kunni lives with her daughter, but no restraining order has been granted.
“I still have PTSD and panic attacks. I go to the psychiatrist every Wednesday to manage my symptoms. This feels very unfair to me. The prosecutor did not want to hear my story,” said Kunni.
At an Aug. 23 Ethnic Media Services news briefing focusing on the difficulty of prosecuting hate crimes, Monthanus Ratanapakdee shared a similar story about her late father Vicha. On Jan. 30, 2021, the 84-year old grandfather was taking a daily walk around his San Francisco neighborhood. He was fatally pushed to the ground by suspect Antoine Watson, who then left the scene. Watson was arrested two days later, and remains in jail without bail. He has been charged with attempted murder, but no hate crime charges have been added, despite video evidence of the violent attack.
Three and a half years later, no trial date has been set.
“I would suggest that we shake the trees at the California Department of Justice and see about getting a form that better reflects the number of hate crimes prosecuted,” she said.
“Victims and survivors feel like they are not always getting the justice they seek and that they deserve,” said Manjusha Kulkarni, co-founder of Stop AAPI Hate and executive director of the AAPI Equity Alliance. She noted a recent California state auditor’s report which found that law enforcement often fails to properly identify crimes as hate crimes, and fails to report them to the Justice Department. Officers are improperly trained to identify hate crimes, she said.
“Law enforcement officers have a reluctance to see things as hate crimes because they don’t want to believe that their city or their region is a hateful one,” said Kulkarni. She noted also that hate relating to Asian Americans and Pacific Islander victims is not necessarily universally accepted as hate in the same way as a cross burning or swastika graffiti.
