~ Manhattan
~ 58, 22
~ Woman, son
~ Than Than Htwe
~ Burmese
Burmese mother and son were walking up the subway steps a man yanks them both down the stairs. The mother head smacked against the tile floor. She is in a coma for 10 days and dies.
The police are not investigating Htwe’s death as an anti-Asian attack, although the Manhattan District Attorney’s Office said it was examining the possibility. It would likely take explicit evidence, such as the utterance of a racial slur, for the attacker, who is Black, to be charged with a hate crime. Only a tiny percentage of the attacks involving victims of Asian descent have fit this bill. The rest are often described as random.