A 74-year old man was attacked and killed in a seemingly unprovoked fashion last month in Phoenix, Arizona, following a series of events in recent months in which Asian senior citizens have been attacked. The Phoenix Police are declining to describe the event as a hate crime, but accounts of Juanito Falcon’s death are reminiscent of so-called ‘knockout game’ incidents.
Accounts of the attack describe a man attacking Falcon in an unprovoked fashion in a restaurant parking lot in North Phoenix, knocking him to the ground with one punch. Falcon’s skull was fractured when he hit the ground, and the 74-year old man died at a hospital two days later. Two weeks the violent attack, which the victim’s daughter has indicated occurred as her father was merely taking a morning walk, Phoenix Police arrested 40-year old Marcus Williams, who is facing a charge of murder for the killing. Williams allegedly escaped with scene with his girlfriend in a car after the attack.
Some members of the Asian American community have speculated that the killing follows in the vein of a series of racially charged hate crimes targeting Asians, mostly in California.
Even as charged suspects arrested in violent crimes targeting Asians have been mostly black, some left-wing organizations have cited supposed “white nationalism” and Trump supporters as the culprits behind knockout-game style assaults. A demonstration drawing attention to crimes against Asians in New York City targeted “white supremacy,” directly following an attack on a senior for which a young black man was arrested.
The motive behind this heinous knockout-style attack isn’t entirely clear, but it follows in a pattern of incidents that are all too common.
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