Video of racist attack on can collector prompts police investigation

One of the attackers shouts 'I hate Asians' during the confrontation

A video depicting a violent, racist attack against a man collecting cans in San Francisco has prompted a police investigation.

In the video, an older Asian man collecting cans is attacked and mocked by at least two African-American men who steal a shopping cart full of aluminum cans. At one point, one of the men shouts “I hate Asians!” and harasses the man.

When the can collector attempts to stop the theft of his cans, one of his harassers chases him and swings a trash picker at him.

According to CBSN Bay Area News, the encounter took place just outside a housing project.

Near the end of the video, the can collector can be seen crying as his attackers make off with his cans.

The San Francisco police department announced it had launched an investigation into the incident.

“The video does look like there was some type of altercation or robbery, or assault. We have to find out all that stuff in the investigation,” SFPD Captain Troy Dangerfield said.

The video was shared online, spurring GoFundMe pages and calls from local activists for help finding the can collector.

Marlene Tran, a spokesperson for the Visitacion Valley Asian Alliance, said the scene was “heartbreaking.”

“It is hard to understand in a city like San Francisco how this could happen,” she said. “We are already talking to leaders in the Chinese community and leaders across the city about doing something this week at the site. We plan to have conversations about how to educate people, about how to avoid issues like this, but really to build community across the board so that things like this never happen again.”

San Francisco District 10 Supervisor Shamann Walton, the legislative representative for the region of the city where the attack happened, issued a statement after the attack garnered attention in the community.

“We absolutely do not tolerate any type of senseless violence and racism towards any of our community members especially towards our most vulnerable. It is heartbreaking to see this type of violence occur in our community, and no one should ever have to endure this,” Mr Walton said.”Seeing something like that is very disheartening...I didn’t see anyone in that video try to stop what was happening from what was going on. That’s why we have to educate our community about how to treat each other right and how to make sure we work together to stop bullying, to stop any type of madness like this.”