An Asian woman turned the tables on a man who attacked her in broad daylight on the streets of San Francisco. Xiao Zhen Xie, 75, was standing at a traffic light when she was suspect sucker-punched in the face.
Xiao fought back, finding a wooden stick on the ground, which she used to defend herself. The attacker was left beaten and bloodied and had to be taken to the hospital.
"You bum, why did you hit me?" the woman yelled in Chinese.
A witness told KPIXthat police had to hold the woman back as she tried to continue attacking the man as he was being taken away on a stretcher.
"There was a guy on a stretcher and a frustrated, angry woman with a stick in her hand," said Dennis O'Donnell. "From what I could see, she wanted more of the guy on the stretcher, and the police were holding her back."
Xiao and her daughter, Dong-Mei Li, described the experience to KPIX. While Xiao was better off than her attacker, she did require medical attention and cannot see out of her right eye.
"Very traumatized, very scared, and this eye is still bleeding," Li said. "The right eye still cannot see anything and still bleeding, and we have something to absorb the bleeding."
The suspect has not been identified, and police did not say if they considered the attack a hate crime. The same suspect was also being investigated in connection with another attack against an 83-year-old Asian man.
"We have to do our job, and we have to investigate these cases with all resources brought to bear, and we need to make arrests, and we've done that," San Francisco Police Chief Bill Scott said.
Photo: Getty Images