Juvian Rodriguez, 35, is charged with harassment as a hate crime.
A guy was detained for allegedly threatening to stab an undercover police officer in the face Penn Station in new york.
On Friday, Juvian Rodriguez, 35, approached a New York Police Department officer who was undercover as they were both on an escalator near 7th Avenue and 32nd Street entering the station, and began shouting anti-Asian statements, police said.
Rodriguez allegedly told the officer to”return to China until you wind up at the graveyard,” according to local ABC channel WABC. He then threatened to stab the officer in the face, WABC reported. He was detained inside the channel about 1:20 p.m. according to police.
Rodriguez is charged with harassment as a hate crime, aggravated harassment based on race or religion, menacing as a hate crime, and criminal possession of a controlled substance, according to the NYPD.
Rodriguez was freed but placed under supervised released after his arraignment, the district attorney’s office told ABC News.
Hate crimes against Asian Americans have jumped over the last four years. The coronavirus pandemic and its supposed origins in Wuhan, China, have been cited by advocates as one rationale for the spike in anti-Asian discrimination in the USA over the last year.
From March 19, 2020, to Feb. 28, 2021, there were far over 3,795 hate incidents, such as verbal harassment and physical attack, against Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders in the United States reported to Stop AAPI Hate, a nonprofit organization that tracks such incidents.
The NYPD announced it had been increasing patrols and adding undercover officers in areas with significant Asian American populations to curb crimes.
“The next person you target, whether it’s through speech, threatening action or anything else, walking across a sidewalk or on a train platform, could be a plainclothes New York City police officer.
