Woman brandishes knife at an Asian teen on SEPTA
The 15-year-old was not injured.
A 15-year-old Asian girl was riding the Broad Street Line on Thursday morning when a woman allegedly ethnically intimidated her, according to SEPTA police.
The teenager boarded the northbound train at Snyder Avenue just before 7 a.m. The woman, who was seated on the train, made derogatory comments and brandished a knife at her, the girl reported to transit police.
The teen had to ride the train to North Philadelphia, and the woman was still on board when she got off. The 15-year-old wasn’t physically harmed, SEPTA police said.
Separately, SEPTA on Thursday detailed a new plan to deploy security officers to patrol the Broad Street and Market-Frankford Lines, an effort to combat disorder aboard trains and in stations.
The coronavirus pandemic has driven a rise in racism, violence, and intimidation against people of Asian descent over the last two years. In the first 15 months of the pandemic, more than 9,000 incidents were reported to Stop AAPI Hate, and the FBI recorded a 77% increase in reported anti-Asian hate-crime incidents from 2019 to 2020.
In polls, the majority of Asian Americans have said they sometimes feel unsafe in public.