SAN FRANCISCO – The family members of an 84-year-old man killed in a seemingly unprovoked attack last week in San Francisco said Monday that they believe the victim was targeted because he was an Asian senior citizen.

They spoke to KTVU as District Attorney Chesa Boudin released a statement vowing to “hold the person who committed this senseless violence accountable.”

Video of the shocking killing of Vicha Ratanapakdee in the city’s Anza Vista neighborhood was captured on a neighbor’s security camera and shared with KTVU.

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Family believes attack of 84-year-old man in San Francisco was racial motivated

Evan Sernoffsky reports.

An assailant, later identified by police as 19-year-old Antoine Watson, came barreling across the street around 8:30 a.m. Thursday in the quiet residential neighborhood, slamming into the fragile victim and sending him sprawling to the ground.

Ratanapakdee was pronounced dead at San Francisco General Hospital two days later.

The startling broad daylight attack went viral on social media, striking a chord with members of the Asian American community in the Bay Area and beyond.

“If you see the video there’s nothing non-intentional about it,” Ratanapakdee’s step-son, Eric Lawson, said in an interview with KTVU. “For him to come from all the way across the street what else could have motivated him?”

Lawson and his wife Kim, Ratanapakdee’s daughter, believe the assailant’s targeted their father because he was an Asian senior.

In fact, Kim Ratanapakdee said she has been the victim of several anti-Asian verbal attacks since the coronavirus pandemic halted life-as-usual last year.

“I don’t know what was going on,” she said after seeing the video of the attack. “I don’t know why he’s attacking an old man.”

The family visited homicide detectives on Monday as they continuted processing their grief, hoping for justice. They said Vicha Ratanapakdee had come to live with them from his native Thailand. They described him as a “gentle person who loved his family.”

“It hasn’t settled in totally for me yet. I go back and forth from anger to crying right after that,” Lawson said. “It just doesn’t seem real. It just doesn’t seem real.”

The district attorney’s office has until Tuesday to file charges after the case was presented by police on Monday.

Officers arrested Watson along with 20-year-old Maylasia Goo a home in Daly City on Saturday.

Watson was booked in San Francisco Jail on suspicion of murder and elder abuse. Goo was booked on suspicion of being an accessory.

“I send my deepest condolences to the Ratanapakdee family for their loss,” Boudin said in his statement. “This was a brutal, random, unprovoked attack.  My heart is also with the entire AAPI community for the pain they’re experiencing as a result of this tragedy and too many others over the past year.  We will hold the person who committed this senseless violence accountable.” 

The family has created a GoFundMe page to help pay for expenses around Ratanapakdee’s death.

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Evan Sernoffsky is an investigative reporter for KTVU. Email Evan at evan.sernoffsky@foxtv.com and follow him on Twitter @EvanSernoffsky.

“General Hospital” actor Johnny Wactor was killed early Saturday while trying to stop a group of thieves tampering with a car in downtown Los Angeles, his mother confirmed.

Wactor, who died at the age of 37, was shot while trying to stop a group of three men attempting to steal his car’s catalytic converter. The shooting took place around 3 a.m. near the intersection of Hope Street and Pico Boulevard, according to the Los Angeles Police Department.

One of the suspects fired at the victim and then the trio fled the scene. Police were dispatched to the location at about 3:15 a.m. Paramedics rushed the shooting victim to a hospital, where he was pronounced dead.    

“I just don’t understand what a senseless coward act by that person,” Scarlett Wactor, the victim’s mother, told NBC4.

No description of the suspects was immediately available.

Catalytic converters are popular targets for thieves because they are rich in precious metals that can be resold.

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Anyone with information regarding the shooting was urged to call the LAPD’s Central Station at 213-486-6606. Tipsters who prefer to remain anonymous can call Crime Stoppers at 800-222-8477 or visit lacrimestoppers.org.

By Khristina Narizhnaya and Aaron Feis Published Dec. 12, 2019 Updated Dec. 12, 2019, 11:33 p.m. ET

Students at both Barnard College and nearby Columbia University were on edge Thursday in the wake of the murder of Barnard freshman Tessa Majors inside Morningside Park.

“It’s just so shocking that it happened so close to campus,” said Camila Vicioso, a 20-year-old Columbia freshman. “She was just walking in Morningside Park, not even that late. It’s crazy. It’s scary.”

Majors, 18, was fatally knifed in the face, neck and arm near a flight of stairs inside the Upper Manhattan park around 5:35 p.m. Wednesday, in what police sources have called a robbery gone awry.

Investigators are grilling “persons of interest” in the slaying, and exploring whether it was connected to a recent string of muggings in the area.

There had already been an increased police presence in the area, NYPD Commissioner Dermot Shea said Thursday, in vowing an “all hands on deck” response.

But some students were skeptical.

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“The increased amount of police on campus and the area doesn’t seem to be keeping anyone safe,” said Mia Greenberg, a 20-year-old anthropology major at Barnard.

“It’s scary. It’s sad,” said Greenberg, who took a large environmental science class with Majors, but didn’t know her personally. “She was 18, that’s so f–ked up.”

Barnard comparative literature senior Stella Sapington, 21, said students were shaken by the murder.

“It’s jarring,” she said. “Everyone is talking about it, even on the sidewalks you can hear people talking about it.

“It wasn’t even that late,” Sapington added. “I run around there, by those stairs.

“Pretty much everyone I know has walked through the park.”