A Marin Corps veteran said that he was beaten by a gang of at least eight people outside of a grocery store on the South Loop of Chicago, Illinois.
Kevin Qin said at a media briefing that he lost consciousness during the beating and suffered injuries to his head and body. Chicago police confirmed that they responded to an attack on May 21 at about 11:30 p.m. near the intersection of Roosevelt Road & South Wabash Avenue.
‘There has to be a big racial component to it because of what happened and what was said.’
Qin, who is Chinese-American, said that the perpetrators yelled racial epithets at him during the altercation. He also said that none of his possessions were stolen during the attack, leading him to question the motivation of the attackers.
“Of course, this is a little unsettling because the gravity of the situation, the fact that I was attacked by eight or nine individuals,” said the 41-year-old.
He said that he had gone to the store to get an ice cream cone and when he left, he walked around a woman at the entrance who was leaving with a shopping card. Qin says she allegedly hit him and a group of men then attacked him.
“I just thought that, you know, there has to be a big racial component to it because of what happened and what was said,” Qin said.
He went on to say that his military training helped him defend himself against the group of attackers, but he worried that others might not be able to defend themselves as well unless the attackers were brought to justice.
“Basically what happened was very tragic and then something I thought would never happen in my life,” Qin continued.
‘They know that there’s no punishment. It’s just going to be a slap on the wrist.’
He also said the location where he was attacked was a magnet for crime.
“The situation in the parking lot with many people loitering and just hanging around smoking, drugs and drinking alcohol and sometimes even fights broke out,” said Qin.
He also said that lax prosecution enabled and emboldened criminal behavior.
“These people who commit these kind of crimes, they know that there’s no punishment. It’s just going to be a slap on the wrist,” Qin concluded.
A spokesperson for the grocery store said they were cooperating with police and had provided them with surveillance video of the incident.
Here’s the WGN-TV news report with the interview of Qin.
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