Elderly Korean Woman's Attacker Charged With Assault, NYPD Says

FOREST HILLS, QUEENS — A man who allegedly tackled an elderly Korean woman to the ground in Forest Hills now faces assault and harassment charges, police said Tuesday.

Trehvahn Brown, 30, stands accused of plowing down a 75-year-old woman on the sidewalk outside 116-23 Queens Boulevard on Jan. 12, according to the NYPD.

A video of the incident, reported by ABC7, allegedly shows Brown running up behind the woman and knocking her to the ground. He then stepped over her and ran down the street while she laid motionless on the sidewalk, video shows.

EMS eventually took the woman, who ABC identified as Younghee Choe, to the hospital, where she was treated for bruises and cuts on her face and neck, police said.

Brown, who lives at a northeast Queens psychiatric hospital, was arrested at about 2:00 p.m. on Tuesday and hit with charges later that day.

Since the attack, several other Asian women have been targets of violence; the latest victims in a spate of citywide attacks against Asian New Yorkers, which have spiked amid the pandemic.

Michelle Alyssa Go, was fatally pushed in front of a train at the Times Square-42nd Street subway station in January, and Christina Yuna Lee was stabbed to death in her home the following month.

At a news conference after Lee's murder, Assembly Member Yuh-Line Niou, who represents Chinatown where Lee lived, called her death "so gruesome and so horrible and so cruel."

"Our communities deserve answers and we haven't been given any. It is time to acknowledge that we exist and that the mental health crisis that is leading to an uptick in violent assaults is a problem and support our community for a change," she said.

Related Article: Elderly Korean Woman Attacked In Forest Hills, Officials Say