‘Are you Chinese or Vietnamese?’: 81-year-old Asian man bruised, bloodied in San Diego attack

December 20, 2021

An elderly Asian man is recovering from what authorities believe was a targeted attack in Southeastern San Diego on Friday morning.

What happened: Mark Sonouvong, 81, was on his usual morning walk at around 10 a.m. when a man allegedly approached him and asked about his ethnicity. Sonouvong refused to answer and was subsequently assaulted, according to a family member.

The incident reportedly occurred on Imperial Avenue near Escuela Street in the neighborhood of Lincoln Park, according to The San Diego Union Tribune.
“Some fellow came up and asked, ‘Are you Chinese or Vietnamese?’ and my brother-in-law said leave me alone,” Dennis Lambert, who visited Sonouvong at the hospital, told CBS News 8.
Lambert said the suspect then shoved Sonouvong to the ground and repeatedly hit him. The attack reportedly left the 81-year-old with multiple injuries, including a punctured left eye and a forehead laceration.
“Guy kicked in his ribs pretty good and [gave him a] bloody nose [and a] big, large black eye,” Lambert said. “He’s beat up pretty bad when I went to see him.”

The aftermath: Sonouvong was taken to Scripps Mercy Hospital, where he remained in recovery as of Sunday morning. Meanwhile, San Diego police are investigating the attack as a hate crime.

API Initiative Government and Public Relations Director JoAnn Fields said that Friday’s attack was the third against an elderly Asian person in San Diego. API Initiative’s team is proposing a “rapid response action plan” to raise awareness, boost data collection and improve overall safety in the city.
“Currently, we don’t have a formalized structure [of reporting],” Fields told KUSI News, adding that they need funds for implementation. “That’s what we need to do so that we can build out a website, have videos in [multiple] languages so [that] we can reach the community, and pull the information and get it out as soon as possible.”
Fields said they were told that Sonouvong’s attacker was a Caucasian man. No arrests have been made as of this writing.

Featured Image via CBS 8

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