A video making rounds on social media shows a New York City man holding an Asian man while two other men brutally beat him inside a lower Manhattan subway station.
The cellphone video, which was filmed at the Fulton Street station, shows the victim being battered by two men as a third holds him up like a human punching bag.
In the video, one of the assailants rounds up and slaps the Asian man in the face. The victim’s body appears to go limp until a second man delivers a round of punches to his head. The group cheers up and celebrates the beating.
The violent incident, which occurred on Sunday, was being investigated as a hate crime against an Asian New Yorker. While investigators are looking into the video, some claimed the attack was a case of vigilante justice.
The “Asian Crime Report” shared the video on its Twitter account on Sunday and the NYPD Asian Hate Crimes Task Force retweeted it with a callout for the victim to reach out.
However, the full-length video was posted to another account with the accusation that the man being beaten had attempted to sexually assault a girl on the train.
In that video, someone can be heard shouting at the man: “You touching girls, you touching girls — little sisters and all that, moms and everything. You filthy, son.”
One of the men who slapped the straphanger can be heard saying that he has a daughter before his hand makes contact with the man’s face.
“I got a daughter,” he said. “If the cops lock me up, I’m paying my own bail.”
Police said that they are investigating the incident.
