CAAAV's Activism Against Police Brutality
On October 18, 1986, The Coalition Against Anti-Asian Violence (CAAAV) was founded by a group of Asian working-class women mobilizing to halt the rapid increase in violent crimes against New York’s immigrant and working-class Asian communities. CAAAV emerged as a direct response to rising anti-Asian violence across the United States rooted in a legacy of systemic and institutional racism. These attacks were not random in nature, but instead formed part of a strategic “state-sanctioned removal” deployed in response to rising national hostility towards Asian Americans and local white anxieties as New York shifted into a “majority minority” city for the first time.¹
“Because of stereotypes—that Asians make a lot of money, that they are smaller, weaker, and don’t fight back, that they don’t report crimes to the police or other authorities—Asians are seen as desirable victims."¹
The 1980s and 1990s saw a major escalation in anger directed toward Asian Americans, as they became the scapegoats for the country’s economic troubles and were routinely portrayed as deviant and undesirable threats to national stability and prosperity. These perceptions of the racial group were juxtaposed with the myth of the "model minority," which implied that Asian Americans had achieved a higher socioeconomic status in comparison to the general population. The perpetuation of this narrative harmed efforts to acknowledge that Asian Americans also suffered from extensive discrimination and racial prejudice in the public and private sectors, resulting in unequal access to education and employment opportunities, public services, police protection, healthcare, and the court system. According to a national poll conducted by The Wall Street Journal and NBC in the spring of 1991, the majority of American voters believed that Asian Americans were not discriminated against in the United States and had received “too many special advantages.”¹ CAAAV sought to dispel these false beliefs, and to instead highlight the difficulties faced by Asian immigrants and working-class individuals living in New York.
Backlash to recent demographic shifts also emerged during this era. Between 1980 and 1990, non-Hispanic whites declined from 52.4% of the city population to just 43.2%, still comprising the largest ethnic group but no longer the majority.¹ White residents began to fear their neighborhoods would be overtaken by Black, Hispanic, and Asian minority groups. In response, there was a noted rise in slurs and hate crimes against people of color who transgressed racial boundaries into primarily white territory and occupations. Racially motivated attacks like the 1982 and 1986 murders of Chinese American Vincent Chin and Black American Michael Griffith serve as prime examples of the increased dangers Asian and other minority communities faced from white civilians as the twentieth century came to a close.
“Rampant police brutality—unrecognized by state institutions and law enforcement agencies—represents the most visible form of violence perpetrated against Asian communities in New York City.”¹
One avenue in which violence against Asian Americans was enacted came through the New York Police Department (NYPD), which was tasked with the role of judging — and violently enforcing — who did and did not belong in public spaces across the city. Racist assumptions about the criminality of Asian American communities frequently accompanied police practice in these areas, with residents being unreasonably questioned about their supposed gang affiliations. Difficulties with communication between police officers and immigrants of Asian descent, many of whom possessed limited English proficiency, often escalated incidents between the two groups from minor misunderstandings to major cases of police brutality. “When an Asian person is slow to respond to police orders, he or she is presumed to be ‘insubordinate’ as opposed to simply needing a translator.”¹
While interacting with Asian Americans, NYPD officers routinely employed racial slurs such as "gook, dot head, or chink."¹ They exhibited callous, belligerent behavior toward Asian Americans, brutalizing them for the crime of simply existing within the city. Violence inflicted ranged from unjustified arrests and entrapment to excessive use of force, and even murder. The NYPD’s reign of terror ignited CAAAV’s membership, who committed themselves to engaging in anti-police brutality campaigns. CAAAV organizers championed the stories of Asian New Yorkers whose well-being was jeopardized by officers who had pledged to protect them — but instead did the opposite.¹
CAAAV’s roots in anti-police brutality work can be traced back to their ardent support for the Wong and Woo family.¹ In January 1987, two white officers from the 5th Precinct forcibly entered the Wong’s Chinatown apartment, assaulted the four family members inside, and arrested them on false charges. CAAAV swiftly responded by organizing Chinatown residents and outside Asian American communities to protest this blatant act of police brutality by packing the courtroom during the family’s hearings, distributing petitions, attending rallies, and meeting with city officials. On July 28, 1987, 200 Chinatown residents delivered a community indictment of the 5th Precinct condemning its complicity in the violent attack. These efforts eventually led to all charges being dropped against the family.¹
Two and a half years later, in the fall of 1989, the case officially ended. The family received a settlement from the city amounting to $80,000, plus an additional $10,000 from Manhattan Cable TV.¹ Despite achieving this personal victory for the family, CAAAV’s persistent demonstrations at the District Attorney’s office and at the 5th Precinct failed to bring indictments against the officers involved. In many ways, this was a painful precursor to the struggles Asian Americans would face throughout the 1990s to secure justice for the violence perpetrated against their communities at the hands of the NYPD, who routinely escaped full accountability for their actions.
By the spring of 1992, half of all the cases CAAAV had worked on over the preceding six years centered around police violence.¹
As this digital exhibition demonstrates, NYPD officers often had few reservations using their positions of authority to inflict violence against Asian Americans. At the same time, New York’s Asian communities did not sit back and let these injustices persist without opposition. They were determined to reclaim their right to live in peace in the city they called home. CAAAV’s tireless activism, protest organizing, educational outreach, and coalition-building during the late 1980s and 1990s succeeded in galvanizing Asian Americans across New York City to rise up and demand that the safety of their communities be guaranteed by the officers employed to protect it.
On January 31, 1990, Guo Qing (Peter) Zhong’s life changed forever. After crossing the Williamsburg Bridge while driving home to Bushwick with his eight-year-old son, wife, and mother-in-law, Zhong was stopped by two white police officers from the 90th Precinct who alleged that he had passed through a red light. During the exchange, Zhong, due to his limited English proficiency, struggled to understand what the officers were saying. When the family exited the vehicle, the officers asked Zhong to put his hands in the air. Despite complying with the order, the officers responded by slamming his head against the car window, choking him with a nightstick, handcuffing him, and calling for backup. As his family looked on in horror, Zhong was stomped on and kicked by a crowd of police officers, one of whom jumped up and down on his chest causing him to lose consciousness. Another officer falsely informed Zhong’s wife that he had died, resulting in her passing out.¹
Zhong was carried, unconscious, by officers to the police station. Upon awakening, he was advised not to request medical assistance or an attorney to facilitate a speedier release. 24 hours later, he was treated at Jamaica Hospital after being unable to withstand the pain in his chest. After two nights in jail, Zhong was released from custody. At his arraignment, the police charges were reduced to misdemeanor assault. The injuries he suffered were extensive: severe hemorrhaging in both eyes, which led to lingering irritation and blurring of his vision, as well as persistent chest pain that lasted several weeks. As a result, Zhong, a truck driver, was unable to work for over two months after the assault. His son, who was deeply traumatized by the incident, did not return to school for multiple days and suffered from nightmares.¹
CAAAV responded immediately by helping the family acquire Eric Poulos, an attorney experienced in police brutality cases, as counsel. The organization referred Zhong for further medical care, brought his story to the attention of the city’s media through a press conference held on February 7, and gathered supporters to protest at Zhong’s court appearances. During a meeting with the Brooklyn District Attorney’s office, CAAAV officials demanded that the charges against Zhong be dismissed and that new charges be brought against the officers who had brutalized him.
The legal pressure CAAAV and the surrounding Asian American community asserted over the subsequent months led to all criminal charges against Zhong being dropped on October 1. Brooklyn’s DA, Charles Hynes, delayed the case for an unusual eight court appearances before finally concluding that there was a lack of evidence to support charges of assault, resisting arrest, and obstructing governmental administration. This decision was rather remarkable given the low probability of its occurrence. Typically, only in instances of extreme community outrage, as was the case following the police beating of the Wong and Woo family, were the courts willing to drop charges against victims.¹
The dismissal of charges against Zhong renewed his family’s faith in the ability of collective action to bring awareness to acts of abuse and discrimination. Zhong’s sister, Marie Soohoo, remarked: “Before, when these things happened to other people, we didn’t think that we could help, or that it had anything to do with us. Now I understand that when people get together they are strong and they can win justice.”¹ CAAAV’s organizing for Zhong emphasized the substantial power that can be derived from bringing Asian communities together in the fight to challenge systemic racism and violence. Soohoo also expressed deep admiration for CAAAV itself, which had no obligation to provide assistance but had done so anyway without a moment’s hesitation.
“This was not your problem, but you came and gave us so much support. That made us feel a lot more hopeful. People sometimes say there is no compassion in the United States, but we think there is a lot.”¹
Beyond the activism facilitated by CAAAV, Zhong took matters into his own hands, filing a complaint with the Civilian Complaint Review Board (CCRB) to charge that the police officers on scene had choked him with a nightstick, jumped on him, and pressed nightsticks against his temple. One and a half years later, the Board concluded that there was “insufficient evidence to prove or disprove Zhong’s charges.”¹ Even so, the Board did acknowledge that an unidentified officer had struck Zhong’s face against the car. This admission, like the dismissal of criminal charges, was exceptional in light of the fact that at the time, 96% of all complaints filed with the CCRB were deemed unsubstantiated. In a letter to Zhong from July 26, 1991, the CCRB “recommended that disciplinary action be taken against the subject officer.”¹ The Board’s investigation and substantiation of Zhong’s charges marked a significant victory, signaling that the NYPD was not entirely above reproach. Nevertheless, the fight against police brutality did not stop with Zhong, as the NYPD continued its brutal attacks against New York’s vulnerable Asian communities.
Yellow cab drivers, many of whom were immigrants and of South Asian descent, faced significant physical danger during the 1990s as the result of their chosen profession. Nationally, cab drivers of this era experienced the highest rate of on-the-job homicides, with New York leading well ahead of other major urban areas. Crimes against cab drivers escalated to nearly 60 reported robberies and one murder per week. A significant portion of the violence experienced by cabbies working in New York City came from the hands of the NYPD, who consistently engaged in aggressively hostile behavior toward drivers and utilized racist, xenophobic slurs to insult and belittle them.¹
The rise in police-based violence inflicted upon cab drivers is exemplified in the story of Saleem Osman, a CAAAV organizer for the Lease Drivers Coalition (LDC). The LDC was an organization dedicated to demanding safer working conditions, medical benefits, fair hearings with the Taxi & Limousine Commission, and better pay for cab drivers. On May 26, 1994, Osman drove to 33rd Street and 6th Avenue after being called to help mitigate a dispute between a Pakistani cab driver and a white truck driver. There, he was confronted by plainclothes officers from the Transit Police and the Midtown South Precinct, who yelled out, “There’s no black mayor anymore. You better watch out,” and “Go back to your own country.” The officers, who never identified themselves, proceeded to drag Osman out of his cab by his hair and clothing and subsequently beat him. This resulted in injuries to his head, neck, legs, and wrists that required medical attention. Osman was then arrested on the fabricated charge of assaulting two police officers and resisting arrest.¹
Over a hundred Asian Americans and yellow cab drivers marched from Police Plaza to Central Booking in protest of this unlawful arrest on May 27. During the protest, participants played the drums and carried signs written in English, Chinese, Korean, and Urdu containing messages such as “South Asians Demand End Police Brutality,” “Not Your Target,” Saleem Osman Was Attacked By Cops! We Demand Justice,” and “Stop Asian Violence.” After 24 hours in police custody, Osman was released, due in large part to the public demonstration and a CAAAV-organized media campaign.¹
For over a year, Manhattan’s District Attorney, Robert Morgenthau, refused to drop the charges against Osman, leaving him with the potential of earning a four-year prison sentence. In the weeks leading up to his scheduled trial date on July 10, 1995, mounting public pressure emerged to get the case dismissed. These efforts included widespread ethnic and mainstream press coverage, a flood of phone calls and faxes to the DA's office from outraged community members, and a press conference and rally on July 7 attended by over 150 supporters in front of Manhattan Criminal Court.
On July 10, the courtroom filled with community supporters wearing pink and purple ribbons pinned to their shirts. Combined with support from Manhattan Borough President Ruth Messinger and Councilman Tom Duane, Morgenthau ultimately decided not to pursue prosecution. Osman received an Adjournment in Contemplation of Dismissal in return for making a statement of apology.¹
CAAAV argued that the long delay in reaching a decision along with the unreasonable demand of an apology to the perpetrators “were face-saving measures for the NYPD” intended to discourage community organizers in the future from opposing police brutality.¹ The decision also exposed the DA office’s complicity with the police and its abuse of power. To the displeasure of the NYPD, Asian Americans did not stop protesting acts of police brutality. On the contrary, CAAAV’s membership continued its organizing efforts for many years to come.
“This was truly a people’s victory and a tribute to the organizing success of CAAAV and its supporters.”¹
Police violence against Asian Americans grew more pronounced under Rudolph Giuliani's mayoral administration (1994-2001). Giuliani ushered in a new regime of control over urban space largely based upon criminologists George L. Kelling and Jason Q. Wilson’s “broken windows” theory, first coined in 1982.¹ The theory argued that signs of disorder, like broken windows, created an environment that permitted more serious crimes, necessitating the targeting of disorderly behavior like panhandling, graffiti drawing, and turnstile jumping as a means of staving off the enactment of violent offenses in order to promote a more prosperous quality of life for all city residents.¹ The Quality of Life campaign (QOL), introduced by Giuliani during his 1993 run for mayor, aimed to use the police to clean up the city’s streets and "take back" public spaces in the wake of two decades of rampant crime, economic downturn, the crack epidemic, and the AIDS crisis.¹
In reality, “quality of life” crimes were defined by the complaints of the affluent against the poor, homeless, and persons of color. The dramatic uptick in enforcing these "crimes" in the 1990s created a racist and elitist definition of criminal activity that was employed by the NYPD to delve deeper into communities already under siege from increased police surveillance. The incorporation of the “broken windows” theory into police practice by Giuliani and New York City Police Commissioner William Bratton “gave the NYPD greater discretion to criminalize poor people of color whose very presence was seen as disorderly.”¹ It also further emboldened NYPD officers to violently target the city’s minority populations, including Asian Americans.
The size of the police force also increased significantly, with an additional ten thousand uniformed officers added during Giuliani’s tenure. Unsurprisingly, this coincided with dramatic increases in reports of police abuse. According to a study conducted by the National Asian Pacific American Legal Consortium, 1994 saw a 35% nationwide increase in anti-Asian violence, with the NYPD listed as one of the main contributors to the issue.¹ Nearly 70% of the complaints issued to the Civilian Complaint Review Board in that year involved persons who were pushed, slapped, and assaulted by police officers on routine patrols with no relation to an attempted arrest. ¹
Out of the 71 cases of Asian American violence tracked by CAAAV between 1993 and 1995, 34 involved law enforcement as the primary perpetrators and 18 with law enforcement as accomplices.¹
On April 25, 1995, multiracial coalitions from across the city joined forces to protest a host of issues impacting New York’s poor, working-class, and immigrant communities, including police violence against Asian Americans and other communities of color. In response to the March 24 shooting of 16-year-old Chinese immigrant Yong Xin Huang by police officer Steven Mizrahi, as well as the announcement of plans by Giuliani to slash city funding for social services while continuing to bolster the police force, members of CAAAV and The National Congress for Puerto Rican Rights (NCPRR) gridlocked traffic on the Manhattan Bridge during rush hour while holding signs bearing the names of police brutality victims, giving voice to the suffering they had endured. Protesters also wore vests displaying messages calling out Giuliani’s oppressive police practices. CUNY students gathered at the Brooklyn Battery Tunnel to protest cuts to education, healthcare workers and members of ACT UP advocated for HIV/AIDS treatment and hospital funding at the Queens Midtown Tunnel, and homeless advocates for housing and employment improvements took control of the Brooklyn Bridge.¹
At its core, the April 25 protest called for the defunding of the police and the redistribution of resources to public programs designed to create safe communities such as housing, healthcare, employment, education, and social services. A direct challenge was made to Giuliani and Bratton’s Quality of Life campaign by demonstrating that additional police presence would not improve the lives of New York’s most vulnerable residents. The protest also demonstrated that the struggle for justice in one arena depended on the success of surrounding initiatives, exemplifying the insightful words of Audre Lorde:
“There is no such thing as a single-issue struggle because we do not live single-issue lives.”¹
By the end of the protest, 185 peaceful participants were arrested under disorderly conduct charges, 25 of whom had participated in the Manhattan Bridge takeover. Though the protest only lasted half an hour, it managed to garner significant attention from the media and the thousands of commuters who were impacted. A second demonstration to protest the arrests and demand the indictment of Mizrahi followed at Police Plaza and the Chinatown 5th Precinct.¹
16-year-old Yong Xin Huang never lived to tell the tale of his fateful encounter with the NYPD. Around 9:30 am on the morning of March 24, 1995, Huang was shooting an authentic-looking pellet gun at trees and garbage cans from the driveway of his friend's Sheepshead Bay home in Brooklyn when a neighbor became alarmed and called 911. The sequence of events that followed the arrival of NYPD Officer Steven Mizrahi and his partner, Noel Waters, quickly ended in tragedy.
According to official police reports, Officer Mizrahi caught sight of what he believed to be a real pistol in the teen’s right hand and ordered him to drop it. Huang, either due to intense panic or fearlessness, did not respond to the order and retained hold of the gun. A fierce face-to-face struggle ensued with Mizrahi using his left hand to try and wrestle the gun from Huang. In the process, Mizrahi lost his balance and fell into the glass storm door in the home’s backyard. Upon regaining his balance, Mizrahi tried again to loosen Huang’s grip on the gun with his left hand, when, with his right hand, he accidentally discharged his own gun at close range, wounding Huang beyond recovery.¹
This version of the narrative was quickly contradicted by eyewitness accounts. Huang’s friend, who spoke to reporters the night of the shooting on the condition of anonymity, recounted that Huang had not attempted to resist the police, a statement that makes sense given the vast differences in their heights and weights. Standing at only 5 feet 6 and 100 lbs, Huang would have been nearly incapable of fighting Mizrahi, who clocked in at 6 feet tall and 200 lbs. “My friend was standing about a foot from me… He couldn’t move. It was just impossible to imagine that he even tried to move."¹
Despite complying with the police’s order to drop the pellet gun, Mizrahi approached the unarmed teen as he turned his back to enter the house through the glass door. Mizrahi, with his gun still drawn, grabbed Huang and proceeded to smash his face against the door, shattering the glass. Aimed at Huang’s head, the gun discharged, dealing the fatal blow. Two autopsies, one conducted by the New York City Medical Examiner and an independent one commissioned by the family, confirmed that Huang was shot in the back of the head behind his left ear at point-blank range with a Glock 9-mm semi-automatic, suggesting that Huang was indeed facing away from Mizrahi when he was killed. ¹
In the wake of the shooting, which garnered national attention, the media, encouraged by the police, searched for evidence that would justify the excessive force shown. News outlets dug relentlessly into Huang's family history, seeking to invoke the common trope of urban youth criminality to discredit Huang’s character and innocence. Why had he not been in school on a Friday? Did the toy gun resemble a real one? What was he really doing with it? Their discoveries led them to the portrait of an upstanding teen seeking to create a better life for himself and his immigrant working-class family who “had invested their hopes and dreams of upward mobility” in his success.¹ Huang, the youngest of four and his parents' only son, immigrated at the age of seven in 1986 from Taishan, China to Williamsburg, Brooklyn. He was an honors eighth-grade student at Robert F. Wagner Junior High School, having been placed a few years behind his age group after immigrating to the United States. Unable to criminalize Huang, the media wielded the myth of the model minority to instead paint the teen as an example of a law-abiding Asian immigrant whose murder was an “aberration,” not a fate meant to befall a good kid like him.
Huang’s murder sparked immediate organizing by CAAAV. Organizers called for the suspension of Mizrahi, who was out on paid sick leave, through a letter and petition campaign in the local community which received hundreds of signatures. With the support of Elizabeth OuYang, a lawyer with the Asian American Legal Defense and Education Fund, Huang’s family filed a lawsuit with the NYPD seeking compensatory and punitive damages for their son whose constitutional rights had been violated. Huang’s older sisters, Joyce and Qing Lan Huang, became organizers themselves, channeling their grief to create long-lasting changes to New York’s police practices.¹
“My family cannot understand why [Yong Xin] was killed by a police officer who is supposed to save people’s lives. We want justice for the senseless murder of our brother… Does anyone understand the pain, hopelessness and anger our family feels?”¹
CAAAV also fought to pressure the Brooklyn District Attorney’s office to seek an indictment against Mizrahi for his role in the murder of Huang. Their efforts failed when two months later, a grand jury voted not to indict Mizrahi, prompting Brooklyn DA Charles J. Hynes to decline to press any criminal charges against the officer. The grand jury concluded that Huang had the pellet gun in his hand and was struggling with the officer when the gun discharged, corroborating the official narrative established by the NYPD that Huang’s death, while tragic, had been accidental and an exception in a police force otherwise dedicated to equally protecting all members of the public. For Huang’s friends, family, and the larger Asian American community in New York, his murder was another example of a police force that viewed young persons of color as inherently criminal, only recognizing their humanity, if at all, after the damage was already done. Huang’s family was shocked and outraged by the decision and refused to back down in their fight for justice.¹
“We are very, very angry. We feel it is impossible. We want to know why the grand jury decided this way when two witnesses say Yong Xin did not struggle. We want to know if the D.A. did a good job. How could this be?”¹
One week after the grand jury decision, on May 23, over 300 people attended a demonstration organized by CAAAV outside the Brooklyn D.A.’s office. Participants held signs with the phrases “Remember our brother” and “How many more children must die?” An attempt was made by a CAAAV delegation to deliver a community letter to the D.A.’s office, but they were forcibly ejected from the premises by the police.
These obstacles did nothing to deter the organization from its mission, with CAAAV forming an ad hoc committee to continue the campaign for justice. On July 16, the day before what would have been Huang’s 17th birthday, the committee organized a memorial service attended by more than 300 people at P.S. 124 in Chinatown. Family and classmates shared their memories of Huang and read poetry in his honor. After the service, there was a procession to Columbus Park where attendees created a memorial to Huang with his picture, white carnations, and ribbons. The day ended with a speak-out at Confucius Plaza where leaders in the Asian, African American, and Latino communities denounced police brutality and inaction by the District Attorneys of New York.¹
On October 10, CAAAV and five other community groups met with the U.S. Attorney for the Eastern District, Zachary Carter, to demand he conduct a federal civil rights investigation into the circumstances surrounding Huang’s death. CAAAV’s ad hoc committee presented Carter with over 10,000 petition signatures and letters from 40 civil rights organizations supporting a federal investigation and a reexamination of the earlier grand jury procedures. They convinced Carter to reexamine transcripts from the grand jury hearing and to listen to evidence that was not previously presented to the jury by Hynes. While the meeting took place inside the courtroom, a group of 40 supporters joined Huang’s mother and three sisters in a candlelight vigil outside to protest systemic police brutality in New York and across the United States. ¹
Efforts to hold Officer Mizrahi accountable continued throughout the following year. On March 13, 1996, twelve demonstrators took over Hynes’ office to demand justice for Huang and the shooting of unarmed Anibal Carrasquillo Jr. by NYPD Officer Marco Calderon, both of whom had been cleared of any wrongdoing. Demonstrators outside the sit-in included members of CAAAV and the National Congress for Puerto Rican Rights, who joined forces to create an enormous multiracial crowd fighting in unison. After a three-hour standoff, Hynes called in officers in riot gear to arrest the demonstrators, which included Huang’s sisters, Joyce and Qing Lan, and Anibal’s mother, Milta Calderon. The twelve protesters were charged with criminal trespass, disorderly conduct, and obstructing governmental administration.¹
As devastating as Huang’s story is, the activism that followed it remains a powerful example of the community care that emerged among New York’s immigrant and working-class families. Amidst deep personal tragedy and a climate of intense police violence, these brave families sidestepped racial divisions to comfort and support each other. Iris Baez, the mother of Anthony Baez, who was killed by police three days before Christmas in 1994, began organizing for justice after his murder, joining forces with Margarita Rosario, the mother of Anthony Rosario and aunt of Hilton Vega, who were both fatally shot by officers on January 12, 1995, and the father of Nicholas Heyward Jr., a 13-year-old boy killed by a housing cop on September 27, 1994 while playing with a toy gun.
When the parents heard of a new case, they found the address of the family, offered consolation, and sought to bring them into the movement against police brutality. The activism they engaged in provided families a space to heal and work through their grief while fighting to change the system that had taken their relatives from them too soon. In the words of Qing Lan Huang: “We feel like we’re on the same boat. You feel like you’re not fighting alone.”¹
CAAAV continued to help foster multiracial family-driven efforts to oppose police violence as the 1990s progressed, forming part of a movement that fought to reclaim New York for poor and working-class people of color.
Asian American violence during the late 1980s and 1990s was particularly strong in areas experiencing major demographic shifts. White residents feared what the integration of Asian immigrants into their neighborhoods would do to alter the status quo and consequently protested their presence with a vengeance. One area of New York City that exemplified this situation was South Brooklyn, which for most of the twentieth century stood as a quintessential white ethnic working-class enclave with a predominantly Italian and Jewish population. This changed in the years following the 1965 Immigration Act, which brought with it new Chinese and Korean immigrants who began settling in the neighborhoods of Bensonhurst, Gravesend, and Sheepshead Bay. In Bensonhurst specifically, the white population shifted from being 93.4% white in 1980 to 80.3% in 1990 while the Asian population jumped from just 2% to 10.8% in the same time span.
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These neighborhoods were quick to respond to the growing Asian presence, launching a massive 700,000 flyer distribution campaign in October 1987 demonstrating the anger and contempt they felt for their new neighbors. Slipped under doors and placed in mailboxes, these flyers warned of a Chinese and Korean “takeover” and urged residents to boycott Asian businesses and any realtors who sold to them. Chinese and Korean immigrants, according to the flyers, were devious invaders, quiet at the moment, but silently plotting how to claim the whole neighborhood for themselves. They were also secret drug dealers who would undermine the economic and social status of the neighborhood, devaluing property in the process. Their only purpose was to deprive white residents of South Brooklyn of their entire livelihoods.
The caricature stereotypes employed by the civilians living in South Brooklyn quickly seeped into the rhetoric employed by the local police precincts, who similarly came to view Asian residents as a perilous threat to their homes. In response, they engaged in violent and discriminatory behavior while interacting with the Asian American community, a phenomenon that was particularly felt by the area’s female population. Asian women, like their male counterparts, faced significant violence at the hands of the NYPD during the late 1980s and 1990s. Though the form of the attack or the nature of the slurs used differed between the genders, neither was spared from the vitriol police officers hurled their way. As South Brooklyn’s Asian immigrant population grew larger, so too did the depth of brutality.
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In 1995, Susan Chan was arrested after attempting to provide interpretation between police and a Chinese couple during a landlord-tenant dispute in Bensonhurst. She was referred to by the police officer as a “Chinese bitch.” When she asked why she was being arrested, the officer sang “God Bless America” in response.
Ngan Oi Lee experienced a similar conflict with the police on April 6, 1996. Lee was watching her children at her ex-husband’s home in Brighton Beach when police officer Tacconi and his partner entered the building and tried to kick down the door to another apartment. When Lee offered to get the key to the apartment Tacconi yelled “Mind your own business!” He then forcefully twisted her arm, pushed her forward, and handcuffed her, commenting that “Chinese women are all bitches”. She was then charged with obstruction of governmental administration. Tacconi and his partner testified that Lee, whose first language is Cantonese, coerced her children in English to lie and say the police had hit her during the dispute. These allegations were counteracted by Lee’s daughter during her testimony to the court. CAAAV worked with Lee to get her charges dismissed and to raise awareness in the Brooklyn Chinese community about the issue of police abuse and victims’ rights. On December 4, Lee was acquitted on wrongful charges of harassing a police officer.
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In another heartbreaking case which occurred on May 27, 1996, Kui Fang Lo and her friend, referred to only by the acronym MYL, were abused by officers from the 61st Precinct. During a landlord-tenant dispute in Bensonhurst, Lo and MYL—who had come over to assist Lo in translating—called the police three times to help mediate. Every time the police arrived they refused to listen to Lo and MYL. When the two women tried to explain the situation, the police began to push Lo out of her own apartment. This prompted her friend to take photos of the action, which enraged the officer. In response, he pushed MYL to the ground, maced and twisted her arm, and screamed: “Bitch, you want it this way? [You] try and take pictures of me? You Chinese animals come to Brooklyn and take all the houses!” After both Lo and MYL were arrested and transported to the precinct, their cash was confiscated by the officers. “This is drug money—we’ll take it.”
After a few hours, Lo was released with a desk appearance ticket for disorderly conduct. MYL was further detained, where an additional mugshot of her was snapped, which one of the officers stated he would keep in his pocket to show the rest of the department what she looked like. Due to the pain the mace caused her, MYL spent more than 12 hours at the hospital. After being released, she was wrongfully charged with attacking an officer and spent two days in central booking..
Empowered under Giuliani’s xenophobic policing policies and the Quality of Life campaign, NYPD officers responded to the perceived threat of an Asian takeover of predominantly white neighborhoods with intense violence, misogyny, and racism. South Brooklyn remained an area of the city where Asian Americans had to exercise extreme caution in simply going about their day-to-day business. Officers from the same precinct that mishandled Chan, Lee, and Lo’s cases would be the ones to arrive on scene the day Yong Xin Huang lost his life, further cementing this region of New York as a hotspot for police violence against Asian Americans.
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CAAAV persisted in its advocacy for Asian women, acknowledging and giving voice to the suffering they endured from the NYPD. On June 2, 1996, a Brooklyn Community Forum on the topic of police brutality and victims rights was organized by CAAAV and the autonomous Coalition for the Advancement of Police Accountability (CAPA) in Bensonhurst to educate local Chinese residents. CAAAV and CAPA provided the audience with legal advice and mock educational skits on challenging police brutality. At the meeting, an unnamed Asian woman described a police attack she had endured while sitting in front of a sign written in Chinese that stated: “There is no wealth in our silence. Do you still believe policing will protect our community or are you ready to fight against police brutality?”. This meeting served as a vital source of coalition building, allowing members of New York’s Asian American community and other marginalized groups to come together in a safe environment to strategize on the best methods to secure their safety.
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By sharing her story in a public setting, the woman at the forum demonstrated that New York’s female Asian American population refused to allow the injustices perpetrated against them to persist in silence. Her testimony highlighted the agency Asian American women have to fight back against their oppressors to protect their community from the dangers of police brutality. Women played a crucial role in CAAAV’s organizing efforts, with Yong Xin Huang’s sisters, Joyce and Qing Lan, remaining activists following the murder of their younger brother, assisting on new cases of police brutality, providing emotional and moral support to victims, offering organizational experience, and assisting with translation. Chan maintained relations with CAAAV after the conclusion of her case, going on to form CAPA in South Brooklyn. Lo and Lee also served as integral members of CAAAV, joining the adjacent Racial Justice Committee. Through the tireless work conducted by these women, CAAAV subverted the entrenched belief among the Asian American community that the issue of police brutality did not concern them. As CAAAV’s activism made crystal clear, Asian Americans, male and female, were the victims of police brutality, whether or not the community was willing to admit it.
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The spring of 1996 marked a key turning point for CAAAV as its organizational practices shifted with the establishment of the Racial Justice Committee (RJC) from a case-by-case-centered approach to long-term power building. Under CAAAV’s original organizing strategy, police brutality victims received support from staff members and active community members as they fought for justice, developing their knowledge of the law, media relations, rally formation, and running petition drives. However, once their cases finished, CAAAV had no structure to maintain relations with these individuals. Rather than losing contact entirely, CAAAV began to directly foster the leadership skills of the community, especially past victims of police brutality, giving them the confidence and skills to tackle systemic issues. This community-centered approach empowered former victims to become activists for their peers, leading the charge for change on their own terms. The RJC was a major component of this change, combining community organizing and leadership development with activism, coalition building, and policy analysis to combat institutional violence enacted through police brutality.
Three main objectives were established to guide the RJC:
- Advocating for victims and continuing to keep pressure on the NYPD and the DA’s office
- Organizing Racial Justice Day together with the National Congress for Puerto Rican Rights
- Working in coalition with other community organizations to get a Congressional hearing on police brutality
Momentum for the RJC gained steam in July 1996 after two startling incidents of police violence rocked New York’s Chinese community. On July 19, 13 Chinese youth were harassed by 5th Precinct officers in Chinatown’s Sara Roosevelt Park where they were searched with no probable cause and subsequently informed to vacate the area. When one of the youths attempted to take down the officer’s badge number, his head was smashed against the police car and he was kicked in the crotch. Three were arrested and charged for the false crime of littering. Later that night, Kanog Lu and some of his friends encountered more police officers from the 5th Precinct following them in their car. One officer pushed Lu from the back and when he turned around to stop the officer, he was handcuffed, maced, and had his head smashed against a newsstand. While detained another officer smashed Lu’s head multiple times against the wall resulting in serious injuries.
Around 11 am one week later on July 27, a man known as WC was wrongfully arrested and brutalized by officers from the 5th Precinct. WC called the police for assistance in mediating a verbal argument he was engaged in while attempting to return a defective phone card he had bought from a newsstand vendor who refused to refund him. When three officers from the precinct arrived, they ordered WC to leave. While trying to explain the situation an officer pushed him away and shouted: “Fuck this Chinese guy.” This caused WC to respond: “Why do you fight me? Don’t touch me!” The officer and his partner were angered by WC’s comment and showed it by slamming his head against the police car. When they saw that his head was bleeding they shoved him in their car and called for a supervisor to take him to the precinct. There, he was denied a translator, spent two days in central booking, and was wrongfully charged with disorderly conduct.
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Responding to the egregious behavior displayed by the NYPD during these incidents, the RJC organized a rally on September 15 in front of the 5th Precinct. Deputy Inspector Thomas Chan, the second-highest-ranking Chinese-American official in the NYPD, was informed of the event beforehand but chose not to be present at the precinct to address community concerns during the rally. Instead, he attended the San Genaro festival in Little Italy. Chan responded to the RJC’s actions with hostility, speaking with Chinese news reporters after the demonstration to wrongfully defame Lu as a gang member and denounce CAAAV as an organization that supported gangs, criminalizing the protesters for fighting to improve the safety of their community. In doing so, Chan hoped to undermine efforts to inspire community support for Lu’s case and efforts to combat police brutality. Chan’s resistance to CAAAV and the RJC only further fueled these organizations’ bases which remained committed to ending anti-Asian violence at all costs. When members of CAAAV and CAPA met with Chan and confronted him about the harmful rhetoric he was spreading about Lu in the papers, Chan was unable to supply any evidence to back up the statements he made, cementing that his words were based not in reality but on the stereotypes that define Asian American criminality.
“Most Asians won’t fight back. Maybe it’s the language problem. They are too quiet. Silence is not golden. You have to stand up for rights… I’d like the police to know that the Asians will fight back."
Members of the RJC refused to back down, fighting to ensure the true extent of police brutality’s reach became crystal clear to the public. Through the establishment of a database of police brutality cases, CAAAV and the RJC were able to better educate the local community, public officials, and the broader public about the severity of anti-Asian violence. Significant attention was paid to conducting outreach efforts directed toward Chinatown's youth population surrounding the issue of police brutality and criminalization. Given the prevalence of police violence incidents in public spaces like parks which tend to be predominate spaces for youth socialization, the RJC sought to instruct Asian youth on how to best handle interactions with the police. The RJC also worked to bring youth into their organizing efforts, encouraging them to sign petitions and participate in rallies.
Research into campaign donations by the Patrolmen's Benevolent Association (PBA) in the past decade to District Attorney offices aided CAAAV and the RJC in substantiating claims that the PBA and judicial system were working hand in hand to ensure police officers stayed immune from criminal prosecution. CAAAV also acknowledged the need to combat police brutality on multiple levels from both a local and national perspective. For this reason, the RJC committed itself to getting a Congressional hearing on police brutality in the hopes of changing a police system in desperate need of national solutions.
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The RJC also played a vital role in commemorating Racial Justice Day on April 7, 1997. The day began with a rally at City Hall which was followed by a march through Chinatown and the Lower East Side before concluding in Washington Square Park. Participant organizations included CAAAV, the National Congress for Puerto Rican Rights, Las Nietas, the Audre Lorde Project, the Malcolm X Grassroots Movement, and the Student Power Movement. Various speakers, including Yong Xin Huang's sister Joyce, spoke movingly about the loss of their loved ones to police brutality. Racial Justice Day sought to raise awareness of racial injustice and advocate for policy changes promoting equality. CAAAV and the RJC joined forces with New York’s Black and Latino communities during the day's events as a means of combating racially-motivated police violence across multiple demographic groups, showing solidarity with individuals also impacted by systemic racism.
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Conscious efforts were made to increase Asian participation in the 1997 march as a means of demonstrating the existence of police brutality targeted specifically against Asian Americans. Oftentimes, discussions surrounding racist police brutality omitted anti-Asian violence from the conversation. “The mainstream media, which plays a big role in forming public opinion, would rather showcase Asians as a passive, quietly-ascending-the-ladder-to-success model minority, than as a people who face racial and economic injustice and who have a long history of fighting against systemic issues”. Despite continuous examples of police violence against Asian Americans during the 1990s, many Americans could still not fathom the existence of this issue. The inability to recognize the systemic violence that afflicted Asian Americans halted efforts to implement widespread changes poised to improve how the community was treated. CAAAV and the RJC gave voice to the institutional struggles Asian Americans had long struggled under, opening the door for issues like police brutality to be successfully challenged.
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From its inception, CAAAV committed itself to holding the NYPD accountable for its brutal behavior towards New York’s Asian immigrant and working-class communities. Over the course of the 1980s and 1990s, the organization advocated for the victims of police brutality, holding vigils and protests to ensure that their stories were made known to the public. CAAAV formed coalitions with other activist groups in the city also working to protect civilians from police violence and conducted extensive educational outreach to provide New York’s Asian American population with the knowledge and tools to combat police brutality in their local community.
These accomplishments culminated with the organization’s name change in 1998 to CAAAV: Organizing Asian Communities, a reflection of twelve years of growth and struggle tackling a host of issues negatively affecting the livelihood of Asian Americans across the city. In the years to come, CAAAV continued to participate in anti-police brutality and anti-war demonstrations, protested unfair-working conditions, and developed community-based projects focused on building the consciousness and leadership of its membership and surrounding oppressed communities. Today, the organization remains a powerful force continuing the fight for racial and economic justice, showing no signs of stopping anytime soon.
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