Assault of Asian family on NYC subway investigated as hate crime after cellphone video goes viral

An assault against an Asian family on a New York City subway is being investigated as a possible hate crime after video of the altercation went viral on social media.

The altercation was captured by a woman who was riding the F Train on Thursday and wanted to document the assault.

Joanna Lin told WCBS-TV that a woman made anti-Asian remarks at the family of Sue Young, who was visiting New York from Reno, Nevada, with her husband and their 11-year-old twin girls.

Young said that the trio of teenagers started pointing and laughing at her family, and they responded by laughing as well, in an attempt to defuse the situation. Instead, the altercation worsened.

"It escalated very quickly," Young said.

One of the teenagers turned her attention to Lin after she saw that the woman was recording the interaction.

"She ran over, grabbed me by the hair, threw me on the ground and started punching me several times," Lin said.

Young reacted by pushing one of the teenagers out of the way, but she then physically attacked Young.

"My glasses got broken. I've had headache for a couple of days now because my hair was pulled and so my scalp was very tender," Young told WCBS-TV.

After the attack, bystanders helped the two women get to safety.

"Anger is such a disease," continued Lin. "It's hard to control how you feel, but you can control how you react to it. And if families could teach their children this at a younger age, I think there will be less fights and less bullying."

The investigation has been taken up by the NYPD's Hate Crimes Task Force.

The victims, however, said the incident didn't rise to the level of a hate crime, though they did think it was criminal.

New York Governor Kathy Hochul denounced the attack in a brief statement.

"This woman had no reason to be attacked, whatsoever," said the Democrat. "There's no tolerance for this in the state of New York."

Here's more about the viral assault:

Disturbing video shows attack on F train in Manhattanwww.youtube.com

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