A division of the New York Police Department that handles hate crimes is investigating a now-viral video that shows a man relentlessly punching an Asian man on a subway car, apparently choking him until he became unconscious.
“We need the public’s help,” the agency tweeted on Monday. “The NYPD is aware of this video and is investigating.”
The minute-long TikTok video was uploaded by Twitter user @AsianDawn4 around 1:30 a.m. ET on Monday and was reportedly recorded on a Manhattan-bound J train at the Kosciuszko Street station in Bushwick.
Police have not confirmed details of the incident, according to local outlet PIX 11. The Hill has reached out to the NYPD for comment.
The clip begins by showing a physical scuffle between the two men already in progress, with the Asian man being punched more than 20 times. Bystanders can be heard shouting for the assailant to stop.
The man then wraps his arm around the other man’s neck in an apparent chokehold for nearly 15 seconds before pushing him back into a seat, where he slumps to the floor and appears unconscious.
The attacker then walks off the train at the station. The health condition of the other man is unclear.
The video has been viewed more than 410,000 times on Twitter, as of Monday afternoon.
The release of the clip comes amid a rise in anti-Asian harassment and hate crimes across the country.
Deputy Inspector Jessica Corey, commanding officer of the NYPD’s Hate Crimes Task Force, told PIX 11 that there had been at least 27 anti-Asian incidents in 2021 prior to Sunday. That figure compares to eight at the same time last year.
In August, the NYPD created a task force dedicated to investigating the mounting numbers of hate crimes against Asian Americans.
Violence has increased across the country since the beginning of the COVID-19 lockdown. The virus was first detected in Wuhan, China.
Eight people, including six Asian women, were killed in a series of massage parlor shootings earlier this month in the Atlanta area.
A recent study from California State University’s Center for the Study of Hate and Extremism showed that while overall hate crimes dropped slightly in 2020, hate crimes against Asian Americans in 16 of the country’s largest cities skyrocketed nearly 150 percent.
Stop AAPI Hate, a reporting center that tracks incidents against Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders, said in a report released earlier this month that it has received nearly 3,800 firsthand accounts of anti-Asian hate since March 2020.
More than 500 such hate incidents have taken place in 2021 alone, according to the website for Asian American Day of Action.
The Anti-Defamation League found that 17 percent of Asian Americans polled said they experienced sexual harassment, stalking, physical threats, swatting, sustained harassment or having their personal information released online without their consent over the past year — a 6 percent increase from a year earlier.