Disturbing video footage has emerged that captures three teenagers intimidating a group of Asian tourists on a New York City subway train before assaulting one of the tourists and a bystander who was attempting to film the harrowing episode. The NYPD is now trying to identify the suspects -- who were all black -- in an assault being investigated as a hate crime.
The attack reportedly was initiated by one of the girls who was later joined by two others. The still-at-large teen was sitting alongside two other young girls on a southbound F train. She then suddenly started the attack as the train was approaching the West 4th Street station around 8 pm on Thursday.
Deadly Assault
The victim, Sue Young, 51, along with her family, were tourists from Nevada visiting New York City. One of the girls who was sitting opposite Young started laughing and gesturing toward them as the F train approached the West 4th Street station.
Young initially tried to maintain a positive attitude, but soon realized that the trio had malicious intentions. She said that it was an onslaught of insults directed at her, one after another, as she recounted to CBS New York.
When her husband intervened and requested them to stop, one of the suspects forcefully dragged Young to the ground by her hair and started punching her. Young was punched multiple times in her head before the assailants fled the scene.
Joanna Lin, a fellow passenger, who witnessed the harrowing incident, captured the ordeal on her cellphone. However, she became a victim as well when the troublemakers unexpectedly punched her.
Lin noted that she had a premonition that the situation was going to escalate, prompting her to take out her phone and start recording the incident. "One of them saw me and tried to block the view (didn't work)." Lin wrote.
The shocking video shows one of the teenagers shouting at Young and her family who were seated on the train. The footage then cuts to a scene where Young and one of the suspects were gesturing toward each other while occupying seats across from each other on the train.
A man is then seen approaching then three teenagers in a bid to mediate the situation. One of the suspects then starts berating the man, while another moved toward Lin, forcing her to stop the recording.
Lin resumed recording when the teenage girls closed in on the family sitting nearby on the train. At this point, Lin dialed 911 to report the incident.
Just Out of Hatred
Resuming her recording, Lin captured the chaos that unfolded as passengers intervened to shield the family from being attacked. The teenager with dreadlocks made another charge toward Lin as she continued recording, resulting in Lin being pulled by her hair.
"I'm in shock & still at a loss for words except for what I documented on the reel," Lin captioned the video. "I'll be ok, just a bit sore on the head and tailbone."
She also apologized for what she described as the "pre-mature use of the hashtag in the final frame."
"Even though racial slurs were used, I believe this is an incident of subway violence and bullying caused by delinquents - we need to teach our youth to not hate and to control their anger because it is toxic, triggering and infectious."
The video has since garnered more than 10,000 likes.
Unable to watch Lin being assaulted without intervening, Young shared that she felt compelled to take action. She stood up to push the teenager off Lin, which prompted the same girl to start punching 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. I got like a whiplashy neck," Young said.
The mother also suffered two large bruises on her arm, which she showed to ABC 7 in a video interview. "You just go into survival mode, and you just want to protect yourself," Young told ABC.
The Hate Crimes Task Force of the NYPD is currently conducting an investigation into the incident.
Young said that she would like to talk to the girls involved in the incident in order to address the situation and possibly find a solution. She emphasized the importance of her daughters learning from the distressing experience.
"I want everyone to see that we can bridge this, that maybe there's good in those girls," she said." And I want something positive to come out, instead of just throwing them in jail."
Although law enforcement is looking into the assault as a potential hate crime due to some of the distressing actions by the teenagers, the victims, as reported by ABC, do not believe that the attack was driven by racial motives. Nevertheless, they are still seeking accountability for the incident.
