Bullies attack Asian American teen at school, accusing him of having coronavirus

https://www.cbsnews.com/news/coronavirus-bullies-attack-asian-teen-los-angeles-accusing-him-of-having-coronavirus/

Bullies attack Asian American teen at school, accusing him of having coronavirus
By christina capatides
February 14, 2020 / 1:53 PM / CBS News

A 16-year-old boy in California's San Fernando Valley was physically attacked this week by bullies in his high school who accused him of having the coronavirus — simply because he is Asian American. It is just the latest episode in a spree of racist incidents linked to the global health emergency over the novel coronavirus, now named COVID-19.

"He went to the hospital originally, and went to the emergency room," Robin Toma, the executive director of the L.A. County Human Relations Commission, said in a joint news conference with Los Angeles County public officials on Thursday. "They were taking MRIs to ensure he didn't have a concussion or other harm."

In Austin, Texas, last week, Amy Wong Mok, the president of the Asian American Cultural Center, told CBS Austin that when one of her staff members coughed at a local fitness center, other patrons left.

"She just coughed a little bit because she was coming in from the cold air and then people left," Mok said. "Just a small cough and the people just left, left her like the plague." She added, "At least they left. They didn't attack her."

In a similar incident, a Vietnamese-American eighth grader in Los Angeles named Dylan Muriano was sent to the nurse's office at his middle school on Wednesday because he coughed from swallowing water.

"He actually said to me, 'all the other students who are coughing, they don't get sent out.' But they're not Asian," the boy's mother, longtime L.A. news anchor Leyna Nguyen, told Fox 11.