Masked Thugs Attack Chinatown Woman in Broad Daylight Beating
The vicious crime occurred on a block of Monroe Street largely shadowed in scaffolding, and from where the savages, who were caught on video, appear to have emerged.
| 03 Jul 2024 | 12:51
Shi Yahan, in blue dress, moments before she was brutally beaten by two masked thugs outside 37 Monroe Street, Tuesday June 25, at approximately 2:08 p.m. (
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The suspected thugs, unmasked. (
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Shi Yahan was attacked outside 37 Monroe Street. The opposite (west) side of the street, where Knickerbocker Village, is fully shadowed in construction scaffolding. (
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Two masked savages brutally attacked a 58-year-old Chinese woman, Shi Yahan, on Monroe St. in in broad daylight on June 26.
The shocking incident, which took place at around 2:08 p.m. just outside 37 Monroe Street, between Catherine Slip and Market Streets, was caught on a nearby video surveillance camera.
Yahan had just departed work at a nearby day care center and was walking south towards Market Street on the west side of Monroe Street. On the east side of the block, to Yahan’s left, is the Knickerbocker Village housing complex—the entire perimeter of which is covered in construction scaffolding.
Yahan, wearing a bright blue dress, sandals, and carrying a purse and another bag, was just steps from another dark scaffolding tunnel—this one outside 31 Monroe Street—when two men in black ski or “sheisty” masks, one carrying a baseball bat, approached her from behind.
The man without the bat first punched Yahan in the back of her head, then both jumped and beat her including punches, kicks and swings of the baseball bat.
The assailants, perhaps frightened by approaching pedestrians, then fled and—notably—did not rob Yahan after their vicious attack. While the contents of Yahan’s bag were scattered on the sidewalk, Yahan retained her purse and phone.
A pedestrian walking north on Monroe then came upon the scene and appears to offer Yahan assistance while the victim herself was making a phone call, presumably to her family or police.
Yahan suffered bruises to her leg and head and, after being treated at a hospital, is recovering at her home on Staten Island.
According to CBS News, a neighbor, Jenny Yu, saw Yahan after the attack.
“Just got ambulance. I said ‘How you feel? She said really hurt,” said Yu.
In a statement, Yahan’s family said:
“Fortunately, the shouts of passerby and the courageous intervention of community members scared off the perpetrator and prompted a timely call for help, averting potentially more severe consequences.”
“This incident,” the family member continued, “has not only caused physical harm but also inflicted severe psychological trauma.”
At press time both perpetrators remain unidentified and are at large.
The crime Shi Yahan is all the more shocking because such daylight street violence is rare in what is now a largely Chinese neighborhood, though at both nearby Coleman Playground and Tanahey Playground, questionable looking characters are not unknown.
To the extent that outsiders know this block of Monroe Street at all, it’s because the world-famous avant-garde record store, Downtown Music Gallery, is located in a small basement at 13 Monroe Street.
When Our Town Downtown visited Monroe Street on June 27, there were no signs of any repair work being at either Knickerbocker Village or 31 Monroe Street.
Later that same day, NYPD released photos of the two suspects unmasked. Both appear to be young Asian men in their teens or early twenties.
Anyone having information as to their identity can call the Crime Stoppers hotline at 1-800-577-TIPS or reach them via direct message on X at @NYPDTips.