Video captures attack on Korean store owner in north Houston
HOUSTON, Texas (KTRK) -- The shocking surveillance video showing store owner Jung Kim being beaten up inside her own shop is now part of the evidence into a possible hate crime investigation.
The attack happened on March 17 inside the Uptown Beauty Supply No. 10 store in north Houston.
Kim, her husband and her young adult sons run the beauty supply store. In surveillance video, you can see the two suspects in the case, Keaundra Young and Daquiesha Williams, swipe numerous wigs off shelves, scattering them on the floor.
"They dropped the wigs, so my mom picked it up, because that's job," said son Sungjun Lee.
According to Lee, that's when the women hurled racial slurs at his mom, allegedly saying, "F** Chinese! F** Asians!"
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"My mom, she understands they are saying bad words, and she told them to leave the store," said Lee.
But as the video shows, the women returned less than a minute later, and that's when things got violent.
"They break down our wig section and then they punched my mom. We don't know why they did, but they punched my mom," Lee remembered.
The attack left the diminutive Kim on the ground, with blood coming out of her nose. Her two sons sustained scratches for trying to defend their mother.
Prosecutors allege that Young, after leaving the store, then tried to hit the store owners with her car.
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Young has been charged with aggravated assault with a deadly weapon, a second-degree felony. Meanwhile, Williams is charged with misdemeanor assault.
Williams made an initial court appearance Thursday. Afterwards, she was emotional, and told the gathered media that she was not the aggressor.
"In the video, I simply grabbed my cousin off this woman and told her, 'It's not worth it. We're better than this,'" said Williams. "I never touched anyone in that video. And yet I'm getting blamed, because I was there."
Williams says she is not racist and the incident was not racially motivated.
Houston Police investigators are working on the case right now. It will eventually be up to the Harris County District Attorney's Office to determine whether the criminal charges will be enhanced by the hate crime statute.
As for Kim, she and her entire family are back at the store. Her face and arms are still bruised, and she says she will have to go back to the doctor, who suspects that her nose is broken.
"My heart is very sad," she added.
The family opened the store about two years ago. Almost all of their customers are Black, and Lee says they have very good relationships with all their customers.
"We have a good relationship with people. So that's really shocking because, we have a good relationship with our community."
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