Chinese immigrant, 87, flees San Francisco for his homeland on one-way ticket after suffering THREE violent attacks in crime-ridden city, including horrific drop-kick assault caught on camera
An elderly Chinese immigrant who hoped to spend a peaceful retirement in San Francisco will desperately return to China for good on Saturday after a series of violent attacks in the crime-ridden city.
Rongxin Liao, 87, has been hospitalized repeatedly since his arrival 24 years ago, including an infamous March 2021 incident captured on video in which he was kicked out of his walker while waiting for a bus in the Tenderloin district.
He planned to spend the rest of his life in the US after the death of his wife, but gave up his dream after ongoing violence left his family in panic.
“I don’t want to bother my son here,” he told Sing Tao Daily.
“I don’t want him to worry about me all the time.”
The series of attacks left Rongxin Liao afraid to leave his residential care center in a violence-plagued city
Liao will leave San Francisco for the last time on Saturday before returning to the Chinese city of Guangzhou that he left 24 years ago
Liao was waiting for the 31 bus on a Sunday morning in March 2021 when 24-year-old Eric Ramos-Hernandez launched a flying kick at the aging senior, sending him sprawling to the ground.
Surgeons had to drill into his skull to repair serious head injuries that left him unconscious with a blood clot, requiring multiple stitches and four nights in hospital.
Ramos-Hernandez spent just seven months in prison before being released on a mental health diversion.
Liao, who lives in an assisted living facility, had already been knocked unconscious in another unprovoked attack in the Tenderloin district three years earlier.
The police investigation in that case was halted because no suspect could be identified.
But the final straw was another attack in October 2023, when he was repeatedly punched by an assailant while visiting Walgreens for his medication.
He was taken to hospital to be treated for blood loss, eventually convincing his family to return to China to be cared for by his youngest son.
“It’s too dangerous here,” says eldest son Jing Liao, who emigrated with his father.
“The public safety situation in San Francisco has continued to deteriorate.”
Homeless people fill the streets near Liao’s home in San Francisco’s Tenderloin District
Deaths from drug overdoses have reached an all-time high in Golden Gate City, with 752 deaths recorded in 2023
Anti-Asian hate crimes in San Francisco rose 567 percent in 2021 as Chinese people bore the brunt of prejudice over the Covid-19 pandemic.
The 247 recorded incidents are up from just 19 reported in 2014, and hate crimes across the state are up 20 percent by 2022.
The San Francisco Police Department’s Crime Dashboard shows that crimes in most major categories decreased in January compared to the same month last year.
But robberies increased by 14.5 percent last year and motor vehicle theft increased by 5.6 percent compared to 2022.
Liao required six stitches to close a wound on his head and spent four nights in hospital after the attack in 2020
And the city has become an international byword for urban misery with the proliferation of open-air drug markets and an exodus of businesses and retailers.
Chinese media mocked the city as it prepared to host President Xi Jinping at the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) summit in November.
Headlines included the terms “garbage city,” “destroyed city” and “fallen city,” while the Chinese website Phoenix said the city had entered a “death cycle.”
“San Francisco was once a jewel on the west coast of the United States, but when the Democrats advanced their radical agenda,” one article claimed.
‘Now it has become a crime mecca, the streets are in disarray and it is rapidly descending into ghost town status.’
Further anger was fueled by Governor Gavin Newsom and Mayor London Breeds’ decision to clear vagrants from city streets ahead of Xi’s visit, angering locals who had been calling for such a move for years.
Data from the Office of the Chief Medical Examiner shows that San Francisco entered its deadliest year on record for drug overdoses, with 752 accidental overdose deaths as of Dec. 6.
It tops the highest year ever – 2020 – when 726 people died.
And the city stands to lose $200 million a year in lost tax revenue from the exodus of businesses.
Liao was waiting for a bus in San Francisco in February 2020 when a man ran up and knocked him to the ground with a kick
Surveillance footage captured the shocking attack, which took place in the Tenderloin neighborhood
The attacker, 23-year-old Eric Ramos-Hernandez, ran away after the attack, leaving Liao unconscious and bleeding on the ground.
Liao, a retired steelworker who acquired U.S. citizenship in 2005, became a figurehead for the successful recall election of ultra-progressive San Francisco District Attorney Chesa Boudin in 2022.
Boudin has since been replaced by Brooke Jenkins, who has adopted a more moderate, tougher stance on crime since taking office.
Across the bay in Oakland, Alameda County District Attorney Pamela Price is facing a recall over her own woke policies blamed for a 21 percent spike in violent crime in just a year.
But Liao sees no prospects for improvement and said goodbye to his friends during a farewell dinner on Sunday.
“There’s crime in San Francisco every day,” he said.
‘Old people should be careful.’