April 5 (UPI) — Prosecutors in Manhattan have charged a 28-year-old man with assaulting seven Asian women over a span of a few hours in late February.
Steven Zajonc of New York City was indicted Monday by the New York State Supreme Court with six felony counts of assault in the third degree as a hate crime and seven counts of second-degree aggravated harassment, a misdemeanor hate crime.
“These attacks on seven New York women, each fueled by anti-Asian hate, are yet another sobering reminder of the demonstrable fears AAPI communities, particularly AAPI women, in our city continue to face,” Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg said in a statement.
Zajonc is accused in the indictment of attacking the women over the course of some three hours the night of Feb. 27.
According to court documents, Zajonc assaulted the first of his victims at about 6 p.m. on the east side of Manhattan with the final attack occurring sometime between 8:30-9 p.m.
Prosecutors said several of the women were approached from behind and were either punched or elbowed in the face before the suspect fled the scene.
The authorities said six of the women suffered injuries including cuts and bruises to the face while the seven was treated at the hospital for a concussion after being knocked unconscious when attacked.
The NYPD said the women ranged in age from 19 to 57.
“As alleged, within just three hours, Steven Zajonc selectively ambushed seven Asian women in separate assaults, some of which he struck from behind — for no other reason than their perceived race,” Bragg said.
Zajonc was arrested March 2 following a tip from an employee of a public library who recognized the man from NYPD disseminated video surveillance footage of the attacks.
The district attorney’s office said it has 27 open hate crime cases related to anti-Asian hate crimes.
The charges were announced as hate crimes targeting Asians have surged amid the pandemic.
Stop AAPI Hate, a coalition launched in response to the escalation of such crimes, counted 10,905 hate incidents targeting Asian American and Pacific Islander persons between March 19, 2020, and the end of last year, with nearly 60% of those incidents occurring in 2021.
The New York State governor’s office said the number of hate crimes targeting the Asian American community in the state went up 150% in 2020 from a year earlier with NYPD data stating that in the city alone, there were 131 hate crimes against Asian people last year compared to 28 in 2020.
