Teen arrested in anti-Asian harassment incident

Police have arrested a 16-year-old boy in connection with a racist attack on an Asian woman in Boston last month, NBC 10 Boston reports.

Massachusetts Bay Transportation Authority Transit Police said the teen was arrested Monday.

The teen was arrested in connection with a September 21 incident. That day a group of teenage boys allegedly harassed Vivian Dang while she was riding a Red Line MTBA train. Dang, 25, told NBC News that the teens entered the train car she was riding and began threatening passengers.

“I was in the first cart with them. They were already saying stuff like, ‘This is a mass robbery. Everyone get on the ground,’” Dang said. “One of them sat right next to me, speaking really loudly at me, but I was just ignoring it.”

Dang switched train cars but claims the group followed her, calling her racist for trying to avoid black people. They then began hurling insults at her.

“A witness stated that the juvenile subjects approached the victim and began making fun of her for being Asian,” Transit Police Superintendent Richard Sullivan told The Boston Globe. “They were taunting her based on her ethnicity. They were trying to mimic an Asian accent. … They also threatened to rob some people on the train.”

Dang captured the incident on video.

“Can I get some dumplings?” one of the teens says in the video with a fake accent, NBC News reports. “Can I get some ramen with the egg?” 

Several Good Samaritans stood up for Dang. Two women asked Dang to come sit with them but the boys had cornered her. Eventually, the group of teenagers got off the train before Dang did.

Dang told NBC News that she believes media, politicians and other people with a platform must be more mindful of the words they use to discuss the Asian American community.

“Lack of education, lack of resources of being able to control the things that people are hearing, and saying — that’s ultimately the reason why we still deal with these things every day,” she said.