Around 10:40 a.m. on April 10, a Black woman punched a senior Korean-American woman in the back of the head with her fist at the northwest corner of the intersection of Wilshire Boulevard and Vermont Avenue in Koreatown, Los Angeles. The senior Korean-American woman fell forward on the spot, hitting her face violently on the ground and bleeding from the head.
Captain Aaron Ponce of LAPD Olympic Community Police Station, who was patrolling Koreatown after attending an event at the Indonesian Consulate General at the time, witnessed the entire incident. He immediately called an ambulance for the victim, shared the situation with the Olympic Police Station, and requested officer backup.
Captain Ponce changed course and pulled his car in front of the Starbucks where the Black woman had entered and arrested the suspect. The police investigation identified her as Denitra Sims, 55. Why the suspect punched the victim has not yet been released.
The victim was identified as an 80-year-old Korean-American woman, but the details of her condition have not been made public as the medical records of crime victims are not allowed to be disclosed.
This was just the latest in a series of unprovoked attacks on Korean-Americans, many of them elderly.
On March 6, an unidentified person assaulted a 62-year-old Korean-American woman at gunpoint on the sidewalk near Wilshire Boulevard and Western Avenue.
On March 1, a 61-year-old Korean-American man was assaulted on a sidewalk near West 12th Street and 3rd Street Avenue at 9 a.m.
In February, a 29-year-old Korean-American woman was surrounded and assaulted by several people at a restaurant at 4th Street and Western Avenue at about 1 a.m. The assailants grabbed the victim by the hair and kicked her.
According to Los Angeles Police Department statistics compiled by the Korea Daily, there were 54 cases of assaults involving ethnic Koreans from January 1, 2023, to April 16 of this year in and around LA’s Koreatown.
Of these cases, 22 ethnic Koreans were unprovokedly assaulted by unidentified assailants, with 11 of the victims being seniors over 60 years old.
The assaults occurred in public places where there should be no safety concerns, such as streets, sidewalks, parking lots, parks, and restaurants.
Unprovoked assaults, where the intent of the attack is not clear, have been occurring in public spaces such as the streets of LA’s Korean-American neighborhood, making it scary to walk down the street.
By Mooyoung Lee lee.mooyoung@koreadaily.com
