New York man arrested, charged with assault and aggravated harassment in alleged New Year’s Eve anti-Asian attack
By Celina Tebor, CNN
A New York man has been arrested and charged with felony assault and aggravated harassment after allegedly attacking a woman and then making an anti-Asian remark toward her on New Year’s Eve, the Manhattan District Attorney’s Office said.
Christopher McCormack, 55, allegedly pushed a 56-year-old woman to the ground on New Year’s Eve in Manhattan, then made an anti-Asian statement before fleeing the scene, according to the District Attorney’s Office.
“Stupid Asian b*tch, do you want another one?” McCormack allegedly said to the victim, according to a complaint from the District Attorney’s Office.
McCormack, who is White, was arrested Sunday at a veterans homeless shelter in Queens, a New York Police Department source said. He faces felony charges of third-degree assault as a hate crime and second-degree aggravated harassment, according to the District Attorney’s Office.
It does not appear McCormack and the victim knew each other, and they had no prior interactions before he pushed her from behind, police said.
The woman suffered a minor injury but refused medical care, police said.
CNN has reached out to McCormack’s attorney for comment.
The attack is one of the latest amid a swell in anti-Asian discrimination nationwide.
In the first quarter of 2021 alone, reported hate crimes against Asians in 16 of the nation’s largest cities and counties rose 164% over the prior year, according to a study from the Center for the Study of Hate and Extremism at California State University, San Bernardino.
The most prominent example may be the fatal 2021 shooting of eight people, mostly Asian women, at Atlanta-area spas in which prosecutors are pursuing hate crimes charges based on the victims’ sex and race. Last week in New York City, a man pleaded guilty to manslaughter as a hate crime and agreed to serve 22 years in prison in the April 2021 assault of a Chinese-American man, while another man pleaded guilty to first-degree manslaughter and got 20 years in prison for striking a Chinese woman in 2021 with a rock.
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CNN’s Tina Burnside, Christine Sever and Dakin Andone contributed to this report.
