An Asian American father was waiting to cross the street with his 1-year-old child when a man approached and hit him from behind in San Francisco on Friday.
What happened: Bruce, 36, was outside of Gus’s Community Market by the intersection of 4th and Channel streets around 2 p.m. in Mission Bay when he was punched from behind and knocked to the ground.
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- In a surveillance video, the male suspect, identified as Sidney Hammond, can be seen pummeling Bruce more than a dozen times as the stroller carrying his child rolled away.
- Hammond continued to try to hit Bruce as police officers patrolling the area arrested him.
- Bruce told ABC7’s Dion Lim his “sense of security was shattered.”
- Authorities reported the child was unhurt and Bruce was treated for “non-life-threatening injuries.”
More details: Hammond faces charges of “assault, false imprisonment and child endangerment,” reported CBS SF.
- The 26-year-old was arrested one month prior at the same location for a separate assault and theft after allegedly stealing from Gus’s Community Market, shoving a man onto the MUNI train tracks and hurt someone’s knee, Lim shared on Twitter.
- Authorities said the attack appeared to be “random and likely not motivated by anti-Asian racism,” reported Newsweek.
- The incident being racially motivated did cross Bruce’s mind, especially with the rise of anti-Asian violence over the past year and how random his attack was, he told Lim.
