An Asian store owner and his son have been stabbed by a customer who refused to wear a face mask in Tacoma.
Jin Hyun, 33, said the incident occurred on Tuesday at 2:15pm when he asked the customer repeatedly to put on a face mask whilst in his store, The Corner Store.
The customer refused and began swearing at the store owner. As Hyun escorted him outside, the customer turned violent.
“I reminded him, ‘Sir next time, you come into the store, have your mask on,'” Hyun said. “And he became upset, pulled out his knife stabbed me.”
When Hyun’s father intervened, the attacker stabbed him too.
“The guy was just stabbing him, and I was trying to knock the guy over,” the younger Hyun said. “I was screaming, ‘Someone help my dad!’ He’s bleeding. The crazy thing is he just walked away like nothing happened.”
Fortunately, both father and son survived the incident. The younger Hyun suffered three wounds to his stomach.
“It angers me still,” Hyun said. “At the same time, but because my dad and I are OK. We’re still here. That helps me to release that anger and move on.”
Tacoma police are still investigating the attack and are trying to identify the suspect.
The local community offered their support for the Hyun, leaving notes of kind words at his store.
“I teared up,” he said. “It shows the community’s love. I’m overwhelmed by it. I’m overwhelmed.”
Hyun only has one message for the attacker: “wear your mask.”
A GoFundMe page has been created to support the two victims.
There has been a recent rise in attacks against Asians including a suspect who 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. The suspect has since been arrested.
Additionally, three people were arrested for a burglary spree targeting 26 Asian business owners in Colorado and Wyoming in 2019.
An Asian father was also attacked in San Francisco whilst walking his 1-year-old child and an Asian American teen was left concussed after being punched at a basketball game in Oakland.
In San Francisco, an 85-year-old Asian grandmother and a 65-year-old Asian woman were stabbed whilst waiting for the bus.
An Asian shop owner was also punched in the face by a racist customer in Washington DC.
