MINNEAPOLIS — By now, the video featuring three teens and a woman has gone viral. What seems like a duplicate video, taken from one social media channel to another features text that reads, 'So sad: an Asian woman minding her business is harassed and violently kicked in the face by two teens.'
The video shows one of the teens kicking the woman before it ends.
Metro Transit Police spokesperson Howie Padilla said they were made aware of this incident via social media as well.
"People were reaching out to our Text For Safety folks who monitor our social media channels, linking to it," Padilla said. "Saying, 'hey, do you guys know about this?' And we didn't. There hadn't been a report filed. Our investigators haven't been told about it so we didn't know."
Padilla said it didn't take his investigators long to find out the incident occurred early Monday morning at the Dale Street lightrail station in St. Paul. He said thanks to the surveillance equipment Metro Transit stations and vehicles have, they were able to track down the suspects.
"We were able to get good images within 24 hours," Padilla said. "We knew who we were looking for--the suspects--and within 36 hours we had three suspects in custody. Two 15-year-olds and one 14-year-old is in custody."
As for the victim, Padilla said he is still waiting to hear back from her. This video comes at a time when attacks against Asian Americans due to uninformed discrimination related to the coronavirus pandemic is top of mind.
We asked Padilla if Metro Transit authorities are investigating the incident as a hate crime.
"What we'll do is we'll present the case to the Ramsey County attorney's office and we'll leave it to them to determine what charges would be appropriate," he said.
Although investigators are still working to connect the dots of context within the 15 second video, Padilla said one thing is clear.
"One of the reasons I think that people get passionate about this, whether it's me or people in my office here at Metro Transit, whether it's people on social media that saw this and brought it to our attention is you look at this and start to think-- what if that's someone I know?" he said. "To say this is uncalled for, it's a pretty large understatement."
Padilla said once Metro Transit hands over the investigation to the Ramsey County Attorney's Office, the attorney's office will be the ones to determine the charges the teens might face.