'Deeply shaken': Video shows man attack woman in Outer Sunset

San Francisco Chronicle​

03-05-2025

A grandmother was injured and left feeling 'heartbroken and deeply shaken' after she was struck twice with a wooden stick while taking out her trash in San Francisco's Outer Sunset Thursday morning, her son-in-law said.
The woman, who is in her 60s, was putting a trash bag into her bins on 30th Avenue when a man approached from across the street while her back was turned, according to surveillance video shared with the Chronicle. He held a wooden pole and raised it above his head before striking her in the back of the head and upper back, the video shows.
The man hit her face with the stick after she turned toward him, the video showed. The woman backed up and grabbed her nose bridge, where she was hit, and the man turned and walked away, heading toward Irving Street, according to camera footage.
San Francisco police confirmed that officers responded to a report of an aggravated assault on 30th Avenue around 9 a.m. Thursday to find a woman with non life-threatening injuries. Police said that a man struck the woman with an unknown weapon without provocation before walking southbound down the street.
Police said that no arrests have been made and the investigation is ongoing.
Following the attack, the woman continued to check her injuries before heading back to her house, where her daughter and son-in-law learned about the attack and called police, her son-in-law said. Paramedics were also called to the scene and the woman was evaluated at a hospital to rule out a concussion and fractures, her son-in-law said.
'She's a little bit scared and spooked right now,' her son-in-law said.
He said that his mother-in-law, who lives with him, his wife and their daughter, is 'old school' and always prefers to walk to her favorite Chinese grocery store, even when he would offer a ride. Now, he worries that she won't feel safe walking around their neighborhood.
The woman's son-in-law canvassed neighbors, asking for security camera footage and asking if anyone recognized the attacker. All the neighbors were shocked to learn about the attack, he said, and no one had seen the attacker before.
'We've been living here 10 years,' the son-in-law said. 'This is our home, and it's always felt safe.'
Now, though, his family was left 'speechless at what happened,' he said.
The son-in-law said that police returned after taking an initial report to photograph the woman's injuries and get some of the video footage that the son-in-law had received from neighbors.
The victim's son-in-law also posted on Reddit about the attack, saying that it was being looked into potentially as a hate crime.
Numerous incidents of violence against Asian elderly people in San Francisco have been reported in recent years.
'We want to make sure that our Asian seniors have the ability to walk down the street safely in our city,' San Francisco District Attorney Brooke Jenkins said after a different attack last year. 'If there is no accountability for the people who attack them, if we don't have adequate consequences for that behavior, it will continue.'
The family of the victim pleaded with the public to send to police any surveillance footage or information that could help identify the suspect.
'This isn't just about our family. It's about all of us — neighbors, parents, children — who deserve to feel safe on our own street,' the victim's son-in-law said.