A man arrested for attacking an Asian American woman in New York was on parole for killing his mother, police say.
Brandon Elliot, 38, was charged with a hate crime for his alleged attack on the Filipina immigrant that took place near the city’s Times Square.
Authorities say he is the man who was caught on security camera footage brutally assaulting 65-year-old Vilma Kari as she was walking to church on Monday.
Mr Elliot was charged with two counts of assault as a hate crime and one count of attempted assault as a hate crime, and authorities say he made an anti-Asian remarks during the attack.
He faces up to 25 years in prison if convicted.
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Police say that he served 17 years in prison for stabbing his mother to death before being released on parole in 2019.
“For the life of me, I don’t understand why we are releasing or pushing people out of prison, not to give them second chances, but to put them into homeless facilities or shelters or, in this case, a hotel, and expect good outcomes out of that,” said Police Commissioner Dermot Shea.
Mr Elliot pleaded guilty in 2002 to the second-degree fatal stabbing of his mother in front of his five-year-old sister in the Bronx.
Ms Kari reportedly suffered a fracture pelvis in the attack, for which she was hospitalised.
The NYPD says it has investigated 33 ant-Asian attacks as hate crimes so far this year, already more than the 28 it probed in all of 2020.
The issue of anti-Asian racism came into the spotlight with the Atlanta shootings on 16 March, when six of eight people shot dead were women of Asian origin.
