In January 2021, 84-year-old Vicha Ratanapakdee was on his normal morning walk when suddenly he was body-checked into the sidewalk by a sprinting young man who clearly targeted him. Ratanapakdee was hospitalized following the assault; two days later, he died from his injuries.

Ratanapakdee’s attacker was a 19-year-old black male named Antoine Watson. He was arrested and subsequently charged with murder.

The attack was caught on camera, and it clearly depicts the incident, showing that Ratanapakdee, a grandfather of Thai descent, had done nothing more than glance in Watson’s direction as he sprinted at him from across the street.

Despite the obvious racial component — Watson, a black man, attacked Ratanapakdee, an Asian man with no other apparent motive — the San Francisco district attorney elected not to charge Watson with a hate crime.

Indeed, even during the trial, Watson’s excuse for the assault was, “I thought [Ratanapakdee] was judging me, too, like Maylasia [Watson’s girlfriend] was judging me.” Furthermore, according to witnesses, Watson was heard to shout, “Why are you looking at me?” or “What the f**k are you looking at?”

When further questioned as to why Watson body-checked Ratanapakdee, he answered, “I don’t know. In the moment, I wasn’t thinking.”

Well, the truth be told, Watson wasn’t thinking for a while before the incident; he was emoting. Like a child in the midst of a temper tantrum, Watson, the night prior, was angry after getting kicked out of his aunt’s house for arguing with his cousin. He then went home, where he got into an argument with his father. That led to Watson getting into his car with his girlfriend, driving away, and sometime later crashing into a parked car after being followed by police. Officers initially arrested him at the scene of the crash, but later released him after issuing him a ticket. Watson ended up sleeping in his car, and not long after waking the next morning, he assaulted Ratanapakdee.

If the police had arrested Watson and taken him to jail, at the very least to cool off, Ratanapkdee would likely be alive today. He certainly would not have been an innocent victim of Watson’s uncontrolled rage.

Understandably, the assault helped to fuel a national “Stop Asian Hate” movement, the irony being that Watson was not charged with any hate crime. This reality raises the question: Had the races been reversed, and it was a young, angry Asian man who assaulted and killed an elderly black man, would it not have been classified as a hate crime?

What is most maddening about this whole sad fiasco is that a jury rejected the murder charge against Watson and instead convicted him of the lesser charge of involuntary manslaughter. Wilson was acquitted of murder as well as elder abuse.

Watson’s defense argued he was suffering from a mental health breakdown and stress from his encounter with the police hours prior. Unfortunately, these faulty excuses worked on the jury. Now Watson, who is 24, will soon be free to walk the streets again, as, awaiting the trial, he has already served nearly the maximum sentence for involuntary manslaughter.

Excusing the irresponsible criminal actions of individuals based on identity ideology serves only to fuel more injustice and more crime, which is why California has such a problem with it.