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Brian Lehrer: It's The Brian Lehrer Show on WNYC. Good morning, everyone. Some breaking news this morning, a suspect has now been arrested in the attack on the 65-year-old woman near Times Square this week as the video of that attack, have you seen it, is shocking viewers in New York and around the world. It's incredibly disturbing. It's broad daylight in Midtown Manhattan. You see the now allegedly apprehended suspect, Brandon Elliot, approaching 65-year-old Vilma Kari, pushing her to the ground and stomping on her several times, apparently all while making anti-Asian remarks.

What makes the surveillance video even more chilling is that there were a number of people watching from the lobby of a nearby building, you can see it, and they did not appear to go out and help the victim in any way. Here's Mayor de Blasio yesterday talking about the incident.

Mayor de Blasio: We need everyone to be a part of this because yesterday, I don't know if you've seen the video but absolutely disgusting and outrageous video of an Asian woman being attacked, pushed to the ground, kicked viciously by someone full of hate. That was bad enough, but then to see a security guard standing nearby and not intervening, absolutely unacceptable.

Look, I don't care who you are, I don't care what you do, you've got to help your fellow New Yorker. If you see someone being attacked, do whatever you can, make noise, call out what's happening, go and try and help, immediately call for help, call 911. This is something where we all have to be part of the solution. We can't just stand back and watch a heinous act happening. I think for so many Asian American New Yorkers who are feeling isolated right now or feeling fearful, they need to know that they have the solidarity of all New Yorkers and support.

Brian Lehrer: The Mayor yesterday and, of course, we acknowledge that it's difficult to know how to help when you see a violent incident taking place, right? We all like to think we'll act heroically but in the moment, there are a lot of unknowns including will the attacker go after me if I try to help or what am I supposed to say or do that can make a difference? That's why increasingly, the Stop Asian Hate Movement, and you may know that hashtag, #StopAsianHate, is encouraging concerned citizens to undergo something called bystander training, which helps you think through some of these questions and scenarios before an incident ever takes place in your presence.

With me now, Dax Valdez, he's a senior bystander trainer at Hollaback, a global organization aimed at ending harassment in all of its forms. We also have Sandy Yang, director of communications and marketing for Protect Chinatown. Their group is also asking volunteers to be engaged bystanders, particularly in their case, by chaperoning elderly Chinatown residents if they are fearful of going out by themselves. Obviously, for them, there doesn't need to have to be an attack in progress. They are also doing controls of the neighborhoods now, however. Hi, Dax. Hi, Sandy. Welcome to WNYC.

Sandy Yang: Hi, god to be here.

Dax Valdez: Hello. Yes, thank you for having us.

Brian Lehrer: Now, people were quick to call out those men watching Monday's attack from the lobby of the Midtown building for not intervening. The Mayor mentioned one was a security guard. Dax, what do you think when you see that video?

Dax Valdez: It's really upsetting to see, especially since what I observed in the video from the security lobby, those guys were if not equal to, then the same size as the perpetrator, so they should have felt empowered to step in and prevent what was happening, but also you can't gauge the other person's reaction, but also they didn't have this proper training and they probably didn't want to put themselves in physical danger as well but it is really upsetting to see that the action that they took was to close the door- [crosstalk]

Brian Lehrer: Close the door, just to protect themselves.

Dax Valdez: -and leave her on the street. That feels so callous, especially at this time. NYPD has reported 33 hate crimes in 2021 as compared to something like 20 last year, and we're three months into the new year.

Brian Lehrer: Well, take us a little bit into what your training would have people do in that case. Maybe it's a special situation that they were security guards, so presumably, they had some kind of training that would allow them to intervene in some way that they would consider relatively safe. What should a person do if that exact situation were taking place in front of them, and they had the understandable fear that they would be next in line to be kicked and stomped on, and who knows if the guy had weapons, when they see this take place in front of them.

Dax Valdez: Of course. Our work with bystander intervention and the workshops that we're doing with Advancing Justice AAJC, they focus on the person who's experiencing the harassment. A lot of times what we want to do with bystander intervention is address initial behaviors of harassment and disrespect before they escalate to the things that we're seeing in the news like, physical assault.

We have a series of bystander intervention strategies, we call them the five Ds. The first one is distract, and this is creating a distraction to de-escalate a situation whether you pretend you know the person who's experiencing that conflict and you start a conversation with them asking them for directions or pretending that you know them, and then you're pulling that person to safety, and you're ignoring the person who's doing the harassing.

The second one is delegate, and this is asking somebody else for help, whether it is the person who's next to you on the street or in public transportation, or maybe it's somebody who's in charge of the area you happen to be in. Whether it is a security guard, or a restaurant, or a store manager. Then we also have a tactic, document. This is taking a photo or a video of the incident of harassment if you feel safe, and this is something the building was already automatically documenting what goes on outside, so that's how we were able to see this most recent incident.

The next one is delay is after the incident of harassment is over, you check in with the person who was experiencing that harm, and you make an offer of how you can support them. The last one is direct. This is the one that everybody thinks about when they think about bystander intervention. Intervening directly, setting a boundary with the person who's doing the harassing, and then getting the person in conflict away at to safety.

Brian Lehrer: Such a good list, distract, delegate, delay direct, which one did I miss?

Dax Valdez: Document.

Brian Lehrer: Document, like taking a video. Listeners, we're going to open up the phones right away here. Do you have a question about how to be a good bystander? Call in. 646-435-7280. You can get some bystander training right here on the air. Do you want to know more about how to act if you see harassment taking place or a violent incident of any kind? What do you do or say, or how do you balance your own safety with the safety of the victims? Or maybe listeners, you have a story about the time that you were an active bystander and you did intervene or a time that you wish that you had, what stopped you? 646-435-7280.

Let's have this conversation and try to empower everybody who's out there right now to do what they can do, in most cases, safely we hope when they see something like this taking place. 646-435-7280. Maybe the harassment was happening to you and someone else did or did not intervene. You can tell us that story as well. Also call in if you're a Chinatown resident, specifically, from any of the areas Chinatowns, or a listener of Asian descent. How are you feeling after hearing about Monday's attack? How could you feel? Are you concerned for your own safety or the safety of your family members at a new level recently?

What else did you think? What are people in your orbit doing after seeing that video and some of the other incidents that we've been talking about in recent times? 646-435-7280. 646-435-7280. Sandy, let me go to you and invite you to introduce your group to our listeners and tell us what you do.

Sandy Yang: Of course. My name is Sandy. I am a co-founder of Protect Chinatown. A couple of friends and I, we saw the increase in Asian attacks recently and we felt the need to be proactive about it before numbers do increase. Similar to the data stated before, in 2019, we had three Asian attacks, hate crime attacks in New York reported. These are reported attacks in 2019. In 2020 we had about 29. In 2021 we've already had 30 and it's only March. That's trending at 10 per month so that we can only see this go up to 120 by the end of the year at this rate or even more so we have to be proactive. Now is the time more than ever for a group like ours to come out and say, hey, we're here to protect our community. We're here to protect anyone who feels unsafe going out. This is just ridiculous how many people are currently shown on the websites and online being bystanders.

We actually, Protect Chinatown, we actually follow the five Ds as well when we do go out for any of our chaperoning and when we do our community walks, which are similar to patrols around our neighborhood, to ensure that we are watching out for any possible attacks. Then providing the bystanders the five Ds to ensure we are de-escalating any issues when we see them.

We as a group are, we have about 120 volunteers that are interviewed, every single one of them when signing up, they have to post a negative COVID form because we want to make sure that we're not being super spreaders during our patrols. We want to ensure every elderly is safe as well. When they sign up, they already are confirmed for negative COVID and then we interview with them. Usually, these are referral-based volunteers. However, we do have a large mix of people who are so passionate about the initiative and they all want to help.

Brian Lehrer: I know that you're still in the outreach acquisition phase so you haven't gotten that many requests for chaperones. For the few requests that you have received, what are the reasons people are giving?

Sandy Young: When they reach out, they're usually saying, for one example, I'm really nervous to go into Chinatown because of the recent attacks. I have to go see my doctor, should I reschedule my doctor's appointment? Is this safe right now to even go into Chinatown? Naturally, these attacks aren't just based in Chinatown, they are random and very unpredictable all around town. One of our members is from the Uptown area. She needed to come Downtown to see her doctor. She was concerned to come down. I actually reached out personally. It was referral-based from a friend who said, "Hey, Protect Chinatown is actually doing this, so you can reach out to them and they're trustworthy."

In the moments that we've launched over a month ago, we are still trying to earn trust of our community, Put a face to our organization because we are an org that requires a face, so that we can earn trust of our community, of our elderly. Because naturally, a lot of our elderly, unfortunately, they do require that chaperone service, but many of them are not speaking up because they don't want to burden others in asking for help, Brian. That's very natural in the Asian culture. We usually suck it up a lot of our pain and just push through. [crosstalk]

Brian Lehrer: Reluctant to ask for help?

Sandy Young: Exactly, yes, [crosstalk] but this is when we need help.

Brian Lehrer: Exactly, yes. We're with Sandy Yang from Protect Chinatown and Dax Valdes, a bystander trainer with Hollaback! Patrick in Harlem, you're on WNYC. Hi, Patrick. Thank you for calling in.

Patrick: Yes. On Friday, at 3:30 in the afternoon, I was getting on the subway. I was late for a doctor's appointment and I'd actually missed my stop and was retreating back. At 34th Street and 6th Avenue, a guy was kind of blocking the door, a tall white guy was blocking the door. I went to the other door and out of the corner of my eye, I saw him turn into the subway and sucker punch this Asian guy. He broke his nose and I could hear that even with my headphones on. I know what a broken nose sounds like because I had one broken before and my doctor had to reset it, so I actually know what that is.

I got on the subway and it took a second to realize what was happening. The guy was standing right in the doorway. He ran away. As I ran towards the door, the door closed before I could do anything. Then the rest of us were all standing there frozen in our steps. It wasn't that anybody didn't want to do anything. This is unbelievable and blood was pouring out of his- I'm sorry to be so graphic- blood was pouring out of his nose. He was just in a state of shock too. Finally, I told him to hold his head back. I thought that's what he had to do to stop the blood.

Then finally, this young guy started going towards him. I yelled, I didn't yell, I talked really loudly to everybody to say what had happened because I didn't know what to do. It took me three days to find out that Canal Street Station is where the police department for the NYPD Transit Authority is located for 34th Street. [chuckles] I'm going down there today to report it in hopes that the guy himself reported the incident.

Brian Lehrer: You know, you still sound shaken.

Patrick: [sighs] There had to have been something I could have done.

Brian Lehrer: Oh, Patrick. Dax, talk to Patrick.

Dax Valdez: Hey, Patrick, thank you for sharing that. It is really upsetting to feel powerless in that situation. From what you shared, you did what you thought was right and you were able to use a tactic, delegate, and tell other people what's going on, because they might not have been aware or have been too scared. You are following through, you're going to go report this in person, so thank you for helping somebody in need in that instance.

I also want to honor that sometimes the incident of harassment can be so quick. Somebody getting sucker-punched in the face or somebody drives by somebody and yells a racial slur on the street. All you can do in that instance is use something like delay and try and check in on the person. Understandably so, in an instance like that where everybody is shell shocked after what happened, it is a judgment call to step up and act. What you're doing and what you did, I commend you for because it is a brave thing to do.

Patrick: [crosstalk] Well, I just want to say on top of that, I don't want to dispel your focus today on the Asian situation, is that yesterday-- I'm 73 years old, heavy, white guy. A Black lady followed me for four blocks down the street, yelling at me, saying that I had hurt her son. I'd put him in a freezer. What did I do? Why I had done that. People on the street really thought that she really knew what she was talking about. It's everybody. It's everything. We've got to get back to being people that care about people. [crosstalk]

Brian Lehrer: Thank you very much. Yes, go ahead Patrick. You wanted to finish the thought, you may.

Patrick: I just want us to start caring about each other.

Brian Lehrer: Thank you very much. Dax, any last thought to him?

Dax Valdez: Thank you. I think you always have to prioritize your safety as a bystander as well. Again, you did what you thought was right, Patrick, in that instance. Again, thank you for following through and filing that report because a lot of these incidences go unreported.

Brian Lehrer: We hear Patrick's distress over questioning himself about what more he might have done. I want to play a clip that relates to that, that comes from yesterday's Derek Chauvin trial. Of course, Derek Chauvin, the former officer accused of murdering George Floyd. In this particular instance, and of course, it's a special case when the person you're seeing as a violent perpetrator is a police officer. This is Darnella Frazier, a teenager who videotaped Chauvin kneeling on George Floyd's neck, and here she is from the trial yesterday.

Darnella Frazier: It's been nights, I stayed up apologizing and apologizing to George Floyd for not doing more and not physically interacting and not saving his life but it's like, it's not what I should have done, it's what he should have done.

Brian Lehrer: Ultimately, she concludes correctly, it's not what she should have done, it's what he should have done, Derek Chauvin. Sandy, would you like to react to that because what I hear and that is the psychological impact of being that witness and not intervening as this poor kid is experiencing, and yet she was just a kid, and the people perpetrating the violence as she was seeing it were police officers. Maybe with what-- Go ahead, Sandy.

Sandy Yang: I'm sorry, you can continue if you have more to say.

Brian Lehrer: No, go ahead, please.

Sandy Yang: Definitely, these are two incidents that hold near and dear for all of us. At a time when everyone should be responding, there are some that are not. I would like to say though, there are definitely a lot more people who care than those who are causing attacks on our community. In light of everything, we have so many passionate team members who are prepared for these attacks and we are actually taking a Hollaback training this week as well to ensure that we as a team are prepared when we see these attacks are not bystanders and we are able to distract, document, and perform the Ds. It's an unfortunate time but I hope that a couple of months down the line, we are at a better state

Brian Lehrer: Dax, anything for you as a bystander trainer on that special circumstance where the perp is a police officer?

Dax Valdes: A lot of times we think about using delegate to call the police, but sometimes the police aren't always creating a scenario where people feel safer as we know with George Floyd and countless other Black folks who have lost their lives unjustly. We started to referring folks to the ACLU website, they've got a great one-pager on what your rights are, to not interfere with the police and still document and feel safe without breaking the law. If enough people are speaking up and speaking out about what's wrong and we're using everything that we can to feel safe and comfortable documenting, directly intervening, hopefully, those small actions can create bigger change.

What Sandy is doing with Project Chinatown is a step in that right direction and like she said, hopefully in a few months, we wouldn't need these services anymore. We're still going to need them and I'm so glad that Project Chinatown is there, Hollaback is here to provide trainings to folks, but it is super that it is all getting compressed and we're all feeling the strain, especially under this pandemic.

Then as soon as the vaccines are getting rolled out, we're going to be up against mass compliance for a couple more months and as people are re-emerging into the public, there is definitely going to be conflict arising. We have to be armed with these strategies in order to take care of each other and speaking up about harassment and disrespect when we see it.

Brian Lehrer: With Dax Valdes, bystander training at Hollaback and Sandy Yang from Protect Chinatown. Tony in Glenrock you're on WNYC. Hi Tony, thank you for calling in.

Tony: Hi long-time listener, many-time caller. I got through. Thank you, Brian.

Brian Lehrer: Glad you're on.

Tony: I'm a fairly small man, I'm 5'4, I'm in my fifties now. I did some martial arts training when I was young and in martial arts training, we learned that if you are going to act, you have to act viciously, loudly and it's distracting. I've been involved in a number of incidents where people were being racially harassed in stores and what I did is just essentially confront the person loudly saying that's not correct and got other people involved and the person generally just runs away. They're looking to pick on people, always try to pick on people who are helpless and if they realize that people are helping, they will generally just run away. That's been my experience.

Brian Lehrer: When you say that you've been involved in confrontations as a bystander with your martial arts training and people have run away, what do you display from your martial arts training that makes them run away?

Tony: Well, I just stand very confidently, I speak very loudly. Generally, I use a swear word because that gets people's attention very quickly, and I yell at them, "That's not right, get out of here." Being very strong in your voice, speaking very confidently, it has an effect on people. Police are trained to yell and scream and be commanding, and you do that to scare the person and basically get compliance through that voice control.

Brian Lehrer: That takes some courage and confidence. Have any of these attackers when you've done that then turned on you?

Tony: They have turned to me at times and I've just basically stood my ground. Eventually, other people are involved if they're around. They don't want to get involved in a confrontation because I'm not allowing them to pick on me. Being a small man growing up in the Midwest, there were a lot of big people that picked on me and I learned that you can't feed the bully the fear.

Brian Lehrer: Tony, thank you very much for your call and for those interventions. Dax, does your bystander training include mixed martial arts?

Dax Valdes: It does not but what Tony used was direct. He is setting the boundary, telling the person what they're doing is not cool, and making sure that whoever is experiencing that conflict can be safe and taken care of. Thank you for standing up

Brian Lehrer: Your five Ds again for bystanders are distract, delegate document, delay, and direct. I want to ask you about the first one, distract. I was hoping that people would call in with some stories of distracting perpetrators. We've had stories like that from callers on the show in the past, but maybe you could tell a story because there are many ways to distract. You started to get at it earlier. It could be, for example, pretending that you know the victim, you brought that one up. Give us an example of that.

Dax Valdes: If you see somebody who looks like they are getting harassed, you could walk up to them and say, "Hey, sorry, I'm late. Are you ready to go?" You don't have to refer to the person or talk about what's going on with the harassment, but you're focusing on the person in conflict and you start to create this safe space around them. You could also consider asking them for directions or pretend you haven't seen them in a long time, "Oh my gosh, I thought that was you under that mask. How are you doing? Hey, what are you doing right now?" Anything to shift the attention away from what's going on.

Or you could pretend to drop something. If you walk by the incident, maybe you spill your cup of coffee on accidentally or you drop something, something that is going to make everybody turn around and reorient themselves. Hopefully, that's enough for someone else to see what's going on and also step up and take action.

Brian Lehrer: Sandy Yang from Protect Chinatown, when we talk about getting the police involved, the NYPD union endorsed Trump who many people blame for starting the current blaze anyway of anti-Asian hate and rhetoric over the past year because of the way he spoke about the Coronavirus. I think there's anger there for a lot of Asian-American as well as other people for that. How does that play into how any of your chaperones or anyone else might be trained or might just think about calling the police when an anti-Asian verbal or other attack takes place?

Sandy Yang: Hey there. Right now Protect Chinatown is ensuring that we are doing what we can to mitigate and prevent any attacks on our community, and especially right now, the elderly are prioritized because they are the most vulnerable. Generally, they're smaller and females are the ones getting attacked and the elderly community as well. We're the weakest target and in terms of police reaching out to them, we haven't had to call any policing. In none of our patrols and community walks or chaperone moments, we have intervened with any attack.

For police, I think that they definitely want to be trained correctly and we are reaching out and are asked to reach out if it's needed. 911 is there as a number that we should be reaching out to if necessary. However, we as Protect Chinatown are there to protect our community. If we see something, we are doing something.

Brian Lehrer: Do you want to describe your community patrols and what they do different from what the police themselves would be doing patrolling Chinatown?

Sandy Yang: Definitely. We are doing chaperoning and community walks. We did our first one sometime this week and we have over 25 to 30 volunteers that showed up along with our team members all were there. We split up into different groups and routes prepared so they can scan a QR code and these are the directions that we should be patrolling. As we are doing these patrols, there are around five to six people per route. We have about six routes that we went on and all of these routes are generally in areas where it's either one, high crime areas, or quieter areas where perpetrators definitely tend to commit crimes.

We try to engage in as many routes as possible and as repeatedly as possible to ensure that we are capturing any incidents and protect our community, especially for the vulnerable and the elderly

Brian Lehrer: Lisa in the East Village. You are on WNYC. Hi, Lisa.

Lisa: Hi. I'm Asian descent and I don't go out by myself or my husband. I pretty much just stay in the apartment, but on the other hand, I'm very, very shamed for my fellow New Yorkers. Those, the bystanders that will give them do anything for those two cases. It's just so ashamed and angry and that's it. Thank you.

Brian Lehrer: Lisa, may I ask for, how long have you not been going out? Is this a recent development?

Lisa: Yes. I would say this year and I do go out to only one when my husband comes with me and he doesn't allow me to go out by myself.

Brian Lehrer: Sandy, do you want to talk to Lisa?

Sandy Yang: Hey there, my name is Sandy. I'm on the board of Protect Chinatown. We're actually here to partner anyone who is nervous about going out with a couple of our volunteers. We will prepare a time that you would like, and a location that you feel comfortable meeting at, and our volunteers will meet you in that location and chaperone and buddy you up until your end location. We're definitely here to support you as per your needs to ensure that you feel safe going outside.

Lisa: Thank you.

Brian Lehrer: Maybe Project Chinatown can help you go out a little more, not just with your husband, who obviously it sounds like wants to protect you, but it's no way to live, Lisa, right?

Lisa: It's not a normal life.

Sandy Yang: Definitely don't be afraid to reach out. We are called Protect Chinatown so we can reach out to protectchinatown.com if you need to request, or we also have a number that you can call if you have difficulty signing up on our website.

Brian Lehrer: All right. Listeners, Lisa, or anyone else, if you want to take the Protect Chinatown phone number, get ready for it. I'll invite Sandy to give it in a minute as we wrap up the segment, but let me take one more phone call first with somebody with experience and advice. Sharon in Manhattan, you're on WNYC. Hello, Sharon.

Sharon: Hi Brian. Thanks for taking the call. I just wanted to offer some practical advice from my Navy SEAL boyfriend of five years, who has been helpful in teaching me some things about getting around New York, even though I'm a 20-year veteran here. When you are walking down the street, six-foot social distancing isn't just for Coronavirus. When you're passing people try to keep that distance if you're not in a crowded Manhattan street. When you take a corner, always take it at a distance, try to take a wide berth around the corner so you can see who's around the corner.

Always watch people's hands because generally, even though this latest attack was somebody kicking, generally only people's hands can hurt you. They are aware they hold a knife or a gun, or they're going to punch you, and by just keeping track of those things on the street is very helpful and also three times over the years, I have intervened in domestic violence escalating situations on the street using my command voice, which I learned from training for a drum major in the marching band in high school. People do really take notice if you speak from your diaphragm and you shout out," Hey, get away from her," in a very commanding way.

You have a strong presence and that distraction in different instances has given the woman time to get away from the guy. In all three instances, he did turn and yell at me but didn't do anything because they're shocked that somebody is actually doing anything. Good luck to everybody and I also am appalled, just appalled to see these actions taking place in New York and even worse, to see people not intervening.

Brian Lehrer: You speak for so many people, Sharon. Thank you, and thank you for those tips and we're going to leave it there except for our guests to give their contact information. Sandy Yang, you want to go first, director of communications and marketing for Protect Chinatown. If people want to get in touch to ask for chaperones or volunteer or anything else, how can they do that?

Sandy Yang: Sure. You can sign up on protectchinatown.com and as a person requesting a chaperone, you can also dial in at 646-543-4055 if you would like to call and request a chaperone, you can also request on our website protectchinatown.com

Brian Lehrer: Dax Valdes, senior bystander trainer at Hollaback, how about if people want to take the bystander training?

Dax Valdez: They can look at our webpage ihollaback.org/bystanderintervention. We have a series of free trainings next week, the 5th through the 8th, and then again on the 14th and the 29th, and currently, they are at capacity, but we are working hard to get more free trainings available to the public. Please, check in and stay tuned.

Brian Lehrer: Thank you both so much for joining us and for your work.

Dax Valdez: Thank you.

Sandy Young: Thank you for having us.

Brian Lehrer: Brian Lehrer on WNYC, much more to come.

 

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