Anti-Asian attacker hit with Hate Crime charges by Queens DA
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Flushing resident Patrick Mateo, 47, has been indicted on hate crime charges for the attack of a woman earlier this year. Photo via Olivia Munn/Instagram
By Rachel Vick
Queens District Attorney Melinda Katz has charged the man who allegedly attacked a 52-year-old woman outside a Flushing bakery in February with a hate crime after a months-long investigation.
Patrick Mateo, 47, was indicted by a Queens County grand jury on hate crime, harassment and assault charges for shoving the woman in an attack that fueled outrage and community action across the city.
“I appreciate the community’s patience as we gathered needed evidence to establish a hate crime in this particular circumstance,” Katz said. “In addition to the injury sustained by the victim, hate crime requires a need to show that the victim was targeted because of her ethnicity.”
The woman needed 10 stitches after falling to the ground and hitting her head on a metal newsstand, according to the DA’s office.
The DA’s office said that they found enough evidence to prove the attack was racially motivated after executing a warrant to search Mateo’s phone, where they found anti-Asian sentiment.
After the attack, the victim’s daughter shared her story on Instagram and said that the man was shouting racial slurs before approaching her mother unprovoked.
“Hate crime has no place in our community,” she said in a post that week. “How you go up against a 5'3 110-115 lbs lady? How no one holds this person down on Main [Street] is another question. Especially in an [Asian] community.”
Proving bias motivation in attacks is one of the biggest challenges for prosecutors like Michael Brovner, chief of the DA’s Hate Crimes Bureau.
During an April forum where attendees questioned the difference between how often the public expected hate crime charges to be brought compared to actual indictments, Brovner said that being certain of the evidence needed to bring the charges under the New York Hate Crimes Statute can be complicated.
Brovner said that an attacker using a slur before the assault, or having a documented history of extremist group affiliation — or in the case of Mateo, proof of anti-Asian sentiment — makes it easier to charge someone for a hate crime.
Mateo was arrested within 48 hours of the incident and is facing charges including aggravated harassment in the second degree, assault in the third degree and harassment in the second degree. If convicted, he faces up to one year in jail.
The DA’s office told the Eagle that a date for his arraignment has not been set.
