Chinatown attack on teacher not hate crime — yet, Washington officials say. Here’s why

As hate crimes against Asian Americans are on the rise in the U.S., a Washington teacher is questioning why her attacker won’t be charged with one after assaulting her in Chinatown, media reports say.

Noriko Nasu was attacked in Seattle’s Chinatown-International District while walking with her boyfriend on Feb. 25, McClatchy News previously reported. At a news conference with Gov. Jay Inslee on Monday, Nasu criticized the King County Prosecuting Attorney Office’s decision not to charge her attacker, identified as Sean Holdip, with a hate crime, according to Q13.

Holdip, 41, of Seattle approached Nasu, a Japanese language teacher at Inglemoor High School, and her boyfriend near her car before he pulled out a sock that officials believe was filled with rocks and “suddenly swung it violently into ... Nasu’s face,” court documents say.

Nasu fell onto the street and Holdip attacked her boyfriend with the weapon, hitting him on the top of his head before fleeing on foot, according to documents.

Holdip charged with assault

Nasu was severely injured with three fractures to her face, a concussion, four broken teeth and cuts on her face. Her boyfriend needed eight stitches for the cut on his head and he also suffered a concussion, documents say.

While the prosecuting attorney’s office charged Holdip with two counts of second-degree assault, it did not file hate crime charges. Nasu spoke up about feeling “as if I was abused twice” after hearing the decision, My Northwest reported.

“First by the attacker, and second by the legal system,” said Nasu, according to the news outlet. “Does the legal system have any real interest in protecting the Asian American community from hate crimes? I do not think so, and I am not the only one.”

Why no hate crime charge?

Casey McNerthney, a spokesperson for the prosecuting attorney’s office, told McClatchy News in an email that the defendant would face a longer sentence if convicted on an assault charge and “the reason for charging an assault rather than a hate crime is based on the evidence we’ve received from investigators so far.”

If investigators find evidence that would allow the prosecutor to prove the attack was a hate crime beyond a reasonable doubt, the attorney’s office could modify the charging decision.

“Our office is committed to aggressively and expeditiously prosecuting this case,” McNertheny said. “We take hate crimes seriously, including the disturbing national trend of hate crimes against Asian Americans.”

Holdip is in the King County Jail on $100,000 bail, and he will likely face a sentence of 12 to 14 months in prison, but if the prosecuting attorney’s office succeeds in proving the victim’s injuries were “excessive in comparison to the level of bodily harm contemplated by the law,” “a judge would have the ability to increase the defendant’s sentence up to a maximum of 10 years,” McNerthney said.

Nasu joined other state officials at the news conference, condemning the increasing violence against Asian Americans nationally and in Washington, a Facebook post from King County Councilmember Reagan Dunn said. Rep. My-Linh Thai, Rep. Sharon Tomiko Santos, King County Executive Dow Constantine and other local leaders were also there “to offer our united support for our Asian American and Pacific Islander neighbors,” according to Dunn’s post.

Rising hate crimes against Asian Americans

With politicians — including former President Donald Trump — and others calling the coronavirus the “China virus,” hate crimes against Asian Americans have been on the rise during the COVID-19 pandemic, from Seattle to across the United States, media outlets report.

During a March 2 media briefing, Leandra Craft, King County deputy prosecuting attorney, acknowledged that anti-Asian hate crimes have increased, especially during the COVID-19 pandemic.

“What we’re seeing nationally is Asian American communities are getting attacked at an increasingly alarming rate based on the negative thoughts that Asian Americans are more likely the reason, the inaccurate thoughts that Asian Americans are the reason why COVID is spreading,” Craft said.

The Seattle area has been targeted by white nationalists in the past and saw an increase in anti-Asian hate crimes in 2020, according to a March 3 news release from the Seattle Police Department.

Seattle police received 14 reports of anti-Asian hate crimes in the city last year, up from nine in 2019 and six in 2018. The King County Prosecuting Attorney’s Office charged 59 hate crimes in 2020, which was up by 20 cases the year prior and 29 more than in 2018, KING reported.

Stop AAPI Hate, a national coalition documenting and addressing anti-Asian hate and discrimination amid the COVID-19 pandemic, received 3,795 reports of anti-Asian hate from all 50 states and the District of Columbia between March 19, 2020, and Feb. 28, according to a news release from the organization.

This story was originally published March 22, 2021 at 5:55 PM with the headline "Chinatown attack on teacher not hate crime — yet, Washington officials say. Here’s why."