A college campus in New York City is on alert after several students were injured injured in a violent hate-crime spree targeting Asian Americans.
At least seven NYU students have been assaulted within the past month in and around Washington Square Park. A group of students, including one of the victims, is now demanding more be done to improve campus safety.
"We've created town halls, but it's like, what is the university going to do?" asks Naomi Tanaka. "NYU Safety and security officials should realize that they are the ones responsible of helping to keep students safe."
Tanaka, a sophomore at NYU, wants the school to do more to protect students after a string of attacks around campus, some of which targeted Asian students.
"Nowadays, because Asian hate crimes have become so often, people are kinda scared to walk on the streets and on campus," said student A.J. Sun.
NYU does not have security video of the assaults, but back on Feb. 15, Sun was walking part the Stern Building around 4:30 p.m. when he says a random person attacked.
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"It's like a punch here, on the left side of my head, and then it just happened. I had no time to react and then the person just ran away," the senior said.
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Sun posted a message on social media alerting students to the incident.
On Friday, an NYU campus safety email said more security cameras, improved lighting and increased police presence would be added.
"We are conscious of the unease that Asian members of the NYU community may be feeling right now; we stand united in full support of them, and want them to know they have our support and that we are determined to make them feel secure on our campus," the message read, in part. "And given the fact that three of the four incidents involved Asian students, we are proceeding on the assumption that anti-Asian bigotry must be playing a role."
In a statement provided to NBC New York, an NYU spokesperson said that the school had already alerted police about the incidents, but reached out to the NYPD's Hate Crime Task Force after learning about the seven Asian women attacked by a suspect over the span of just three hours on Sunday. The spokesperson said that the school "noticed similarities" of those attacks and the ones against the NYU students, and said that police will be looking into the matter.
"That said, it is not clear and we certainly haven't formed any conclusion about whether the person arrested yesterday was involved in any of the incidents here; however, given some of the similarities, we deemed it well worth making contact with City investigators. NYU's Campus Safety Department is operating under the assumption that at least some of the four incidents are likely connected to one another, whether or not they're connected to the person accused of striking the seven non-NYU women in southern Manhattan," the spokesperson said, while noting that they cannot confirm the attacks were targeted against Asians.
The NYPD said some of the students may have been attacked by the same man seen on surveillance video and identified as 28-year-old Steven Zajonc, arrested two days ago and facing multiple charges for the attacks.
"I definitely feel like it's a good start but there's still so much more that can be done about it," Sun said.
