An Asian American teen was left concussed after being punched at a basketball game in Oakland.
Video footage shows the San Jose teen Evan trying to grab the basketball during the match. As he reaches, a player from the opposing team also reaches for it but then pushes Evan after passing the ball.
Evan gets up and is pushed down again by a second player before words are exchanged and Evan is punched in the head.
“Not one single parent stood up to go protect my son, I ran across the gym to get him,” Evan’s mother Lennie said. “They did use the ‘C’ word.”
“Several of the boys said they were using a lot of profanity using the ‘B’ word using the ‘C’ word,” witness Olivia said.
The tournament was hosted by Grassroots 365, who allegedly refused to watch the video footage of the incident.
“How was a technical foul not called when he was obviously punching him in the face?” Olivia asked. “They said, ‘Oh, we saw what happened,’ and I was pressing them because I said, ‘If you saw what happened, you should not let that go!’”
“The worst part is no one apologized,” Evan’s father Eduardo said.
The player who punched Evan was banned from the game but the player who pushed Evan was not.
“We pay a lot of money, a lot of families pay a lot of money for this AAU,” Lennie said.
“It just makes parents not want to pay all this money to put their kids in danger if they’re not going to be protected and be safe,” said Olivia. “That’s sad, because they love basketball.”
Grassroots 365 posted a statement on its Instagram account and on the organization’s website, saying, “We are sickened by the senseless and deplorable actions of individual players on the court this past weekend in Oakland. We have taken swift action to address the individuals involved and will continue to diligently and comprehensively investigate the incident that took place.”
There has been a recent rise in attacks against Asians including an Asian “anti-masker” who was stabbed and killed in Washington.
In another incident, a man who racially abused an Asian American detective is now facing a lawsuit.
A suspect was also arrested for robbing and stabbing an Asian man in San Francisco.
Another a suspect was arrested for stomping on a 61-year-old man’s head in Harlem.
Meanwhile, charges against the man who spat at and punched an 83-year-old Korean grandmother have been dropped.
Elsewhere, the president of the Oakland Chinatown Chamber of Commerce was racially abused and physically attacked.
Additionally, three people were arrested for a burglary spree targeting 26 Asian business owners in Colorado and Wyoming in 2019.
Most recently, an Asian father was attacked in San Francisco whilst walking his 1-year-old child.
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