Police have arrested a suspect for his alleged role in the brutal assault of Yao Pan Ma in East Harlem on Friday night.
Jarrod Powell, 49, was charged with two counts of felony assault in connection with the attack, which left Ma in a medically induced coma and elicited a new wave of anger from New Yorkers already on edge about increasing bias attacks on Asian Americans.
Ma, 61, was collecting bottles and cans near Third Avenue and 125th Street when he was pushed to the ground at around 8 p.m. on Friday, police said. Video shows a man stomping on Ma's head repeatedly, as the victim lies there motionless, then walking away.
He remained in a coma as of Tuesday morning, though he was showing "positive signs," according to an update shared on a GoFundMe started for his family. The fundraiser, which was organized by the fashion designer Phillip Lim, had raised $362,000 in the span of a day.
An NYPD spokesperson said that Powell was arrested at 600 East 125th Street just before 3 a.m. on Tuesday. The address, at the base of the Robert F. Kennedy Bridge, belongs to the state-run Manhattan Psychiatric Center, which also runs a hospital across the river on Ward's Island.
Police previously indicated they were investigating the incident as a possible hate crime, though Powell did not initially receive those charges.
A vigil outside the Harlem Hospital Center on Monday
At a small vigil held outside the hospital on Monday night, community members said the incident immediately recalled recent vicious beatings on Asian New Yorkers, including another video last month that showed an elderly Filipino American woman being kicked in the head in Hells Kitchen.
"It’s unimaginably horrible that someone could have so much hatred and anger to do this to somebody," Lillian, an Asian American woman who lives in East Harlem, told Gothamist on Monday. "I no longer want to go outside by myself."
She added that there had been a visible increase in the homeless population on the eastern stretch of 125th Street, many of whom were "dumped" there from Ward's Island, she said.
"We call that zombie land," echoed Calvin Hunt, a Harlem activist who organized the vigil.
"It hurts me for this man to be beaten like this because he’s Asian," Hunt added. "The incidents, one after another, when is it going to stop? This is not Harlem."
Additional reporting by C.S. Muncy.
