{"id":18043,"date":"2021-03-23T12:18:37","date_gmt":"2021-03-23T19:18:37","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/occupysf.net\/?p=18043"},"modified":"2021-03-23T12:18:40","modified_gmt":"2021-03-23T19:18:40","slug":"asian-vet-attacked-in-hate-crime-that-hasnt-made-the-news","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/2021\/03\/23\/asian-vet-attacked-in-hate-crime-that-hasnt-made-the-news\/","title":{"rendered":"Asian vet attacked in hate crime that hasn\u2019t made the news"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Ron Tuason, 56, beaten by assailant who blamed him for COVID. How many more cases are out there?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"\/<\/a><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

ByTIM REDMOND<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

-MARCH 21, 2021\u00a0(48hills.org)<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

I met Ron Tuason at Bernie Sanders headquarters<\/a> in SF last March. He was wearing a \u201cVeterans for Bernie\u201d button, and we talked briefly.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI am tired of seeing my brothers and sisters who fought for this country homeless and broke and unable to get medical care,\u201d he told me. I took his picture and gave him my business card (yeah, I\u2019m old fashioned, but that was still a thing just a year ago, remember?)<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I\u2019m also enough of an old-fashioned reporter that I answer my phone even if I don\u2019t recognize the caller, because: You never know.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"<\/a>
Ron Tuason was injured in the attack<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

So a few days ago, I talked to Tuason again. He had found my card, and was trying to reach someone in the news media. The Chron hadn\u2019t responded. He couldn\u2019t work his way through the websites and phone systems at the TV stations.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But he had a terrible story to tell of a hate crime he suffered on his way home from the grocery store. And it\u2019s even more disturbing because it suggests that there may be a lot of Asian people out there who have been assaulted \u2013 but their stories never made the media.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Tuason, 56, grew up in the Sunset in the early 1970s when it was still largely an Irish and Italian neighborhood. There were Asian families starting to move in, but it wasn\u2019t easy: \u201cKids got beat up because of the color of their skin,\u201d he said. \u201cAnd the cops didn\u2019t do anything.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

He served in the Army in the early 1980s, in Germany. He was a combat engineer, an expert in explosives. \u201cWe saw a lot of terrorism,\u201d he told me. \u201cWe were carrying explosive materials, and sometimes snipers would fire at us.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Now he lives at Park Merced. On March 13, in the mid-afternoon, he was waiting for a bus at Plymouth and Ocean with a bag of groceries in his hand and more in his backpack and \u2014 a hat on his head with an American flag identifying him as a vet.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

A man across the street saw him, he told me, and started screaming at him: \u201cGo back where you came from. You caused these problems. Do you want to get hurt? You\u2019re not a veteran I\u2019m a veteran.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The man looked like a white guy, possibly Hispanic, he said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Here\u2019s the narrative he sent me:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The man is now in my face and I\u2019m stepping back to get some distance and he knocks the phone out of my hand and crosses the street to the bus stop where his belongings are. During this face-off he kept asking me \u201cIf I want to get hurt\u201d repeatedly. I\u2019m trying to ask him \u201cWhat\u2019s the problem? We don\u2019t have to go there\u201d (meaning no need for violence).<\/p>

I picked up my phone and yelled across the street \u201cWhat\u2019s your problem? I served too!\u201d and he charged across the street ignoring traffic. I placed my left arm out to block him from getting closer and again tried to push the record button on my phone when he hit me with a very strong overhand right (which I never even saw coming) and followed up with two quick left-hand punches followed by a knee to my face.<\/p>

The first punch knocked me against a fence behind me and I hit my head against a metal pole and fell to my right side dropping my phone, grocery bag in my right hand, and knocking the prescription glasses off my face. I was seeing bright lights from the first punch, I can\u2019t see, I couldn\u2019t get up with my backpack full of groceries, so I covered up my head for protection. <\/p><\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

In this case, bystanders came to his rescue and called the cops. Officers arrived quickly, and the man he identified as his assailant was still right across the street. The cops arrested him.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I made a positive I.D. and was checked out by an ambulance just in case. I agreed and was checked out by the first responders\/paramedics, and signed some forms to be released so I could catch the bus to my place of residence; all I wanted to do was make some soup and rest. I got back to my rental unit with no problem with a ringing headache and with my legs slightly wobbly.<\/p>

I did my best to remember all the particulars in the proper order, cook and eat. I then reported this to Stop the Hate AAPI on the internet, taking frequent breaks to watch films and pause them repeatedly. I had moderate difficulty focusing on keyboard typing and forming sentences correctly so this whole process took three-to-four hours. <\/p><\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

The District Attorney\u2019s Office told me the suspect, Victor Brown, is in custody and will be prosecuted.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I don\u2019t know any details about Brown. Tuason said he thought the man was high on something.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

At any rate, Tuason has nothing but positive things to say about the passers by who helped him, the cops who arrived quickly, and the DA\u2019s Office, which he said has been very responsive. He is meeting next week with the victim support services division.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But for all the news stories we\u2019ve seen on anti-Asian violence in SF, Tuason\u2019s call makes me wonder: Even in San Francisco, how far has the poisonous rhetoric from the Trump corner<\/a> gone? How many more cases are out there that nobody has heard about?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"\/<\/a><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Tim Redmond<\/em><\/a>Tim Redmond has been a political and investigative reporter in San Francisco for more than 30 years. He spent much of that time as executive editor of the Bay Guardian. He is the founder of 48hills.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Ron Tuason, 56, beaten by assailant who blamed him for COVID. How many more cases are out there? ByTIM REDMOND -MARCH 21, 2021\u00a0(48hills.org) I met Ron Tuason at Bernie Sanders headquarters in SF last March. He was wearing a \u201cVeterans for Bernie\u201d button, and we talked briefly. \u201cI am tired of seeing… Continue reading → <\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18043"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=18043"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18043\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":18044,"href":"https:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18043\/revisions\/18044"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=18043"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=18043"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=18043"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}