Suspect on Life Parole Arrested For Brutally Assaulting 65-Year-Old Asian Woman

Police said Wednesday that a New York City man on life parole for murdering his own mother in 2002 was arrested in the brutal assault on a 65-year-old Asian American woman near Times Square.

After police covered the midtown Manhattan area with wanted posters featuring his face, officers charged Brandon Elliot, 38, with assault and hate crime offenses. They had offered a $2,500 reward for details leading to the man’s location seen brutalizing the woman on surveillance video as she walked to church on Monday.

According to an NYPD spokesperson, Elliot was released from jail in 2019 after spending 17 years in prison for the murder of his mother. According to police, a court date for his most recent charges has yet to be set.

Officials chastised bystanders for failing to intervene after Elliot allegedly kicked the woman in the stomach, pushed her to the ground, stomped on her chest, yelled anti-Asian slurs, and told her, “You don’t belong here,” according to police.

According to reports, police identified the woman as Vilma Kari; she was released from the hospital on Tuesday after being treated for serious injuries.

The assault on Monday was one of the most recent in a nationwide uptick in anti-Asian hate crimes, and it came just weeks after a mass shooting in Atlanta that killed eight people, six of whom were Asian women. The rise in violence has been attributed to a mix of factors, including unfounded responsibility for the coronavirus and Donald Trump’s use of racially charged words like “Chinese virus.”

Mayor Bill de Blasio of New York City described the attack as “absolutely disgusting and outrageous.” Witnesses failing to interfere, he said, was “absolutely unacceptable.”

“I don’t care who you are, I don’t care what you do, you’ve got to help your fellow New Yorker,” de Blasio said, repeating the post-9/11 slogan of “see something, say something.”

The assault occurred late Monday morning outside an apartment complex two blocks from Times Square, Manhattan’s busy, heavily policed “Crossroads of the World.”

On surveillance video, two staff inside the building who appeared to be security guards were seen witnessing the attack but failing to help the woman. As the woman lay on the ground, one of them was seen closing the building door. According to the video, the attacker was able to walk away while onlookers watched casually.

The management firm for the building said they had been suspended pending an investigation. The workers’ union said that they immediately requested assistance.

“If you see someone being attacked, do whatever you can,” de Blasio said. “Make noise. Call out what’s happening. Go and try and help. Immediately call for help. Call 911. This is something where we all have to be part of the solution. We can’t just stand back and watch a heinous act happening.”

The victim “could easily have been my mother,” said mayoral candidate Andrew Yang, a son of Taiwanese immigrants. He, too, chastised the onlookers, stating that their silence was “exactly the opposite of what we need here in New York City.”

As of Sunday, there had been 33 hate crimes in New York City involving an Asian survivor this year, according to police. By the same time last year, there had been 11 such assaults.

A 65-year-old Asian American woman was accosted by a man waving an unknown object and shouting anti-Asian slurs in the same neighborhood as Monday’s assault. The next day, a 48-year-old man was arrested and charged with menacing. He has not been linked to the assault on Monday.

Last week, Police Commissioner Dermot Shea revealed that the department would expand its outreach and patrols in primarily Asian neighborhoods, including undercover officers, to deter and disrupt assaults.

According to city demographic statistics, the neighborhood where Monday’s attack occurred, Hell’s Kitchen, is overwhelmingly white, with an Asian population of less than 20%.

Shea characterized Monday’s attack as “disgusting,” telling NY1: “I have no idea who would attack a 65-year-old woman and abandon her on the street.”