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A video of what appears to be an attack on an elderly Asian woman has been posted on social media, with the following description:

UNPROVOKED ATTACK ON ELDERLY ASIAN WOMAN A 69-year-old woman was walking when a man assaulted and robbed her Thursday at 3:40 pm at Serravista near Norwood in Daly City, according to @DalyCityPD . Suspect ran away @KPIXtv @WilsonKPIX more at 5 pm #StopAAPIHate #StopAsianHate

There are several comments under the video saying it is fake, including one by American film producer and commentator Tariq Nasheed:

This is so clearly staged. This is anti-Black propaganda orchestrated by police and politicians

Has the veracity of this video been confirmed by other sources?

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    There is no way to tell from the video if the description is accurate. The description says it's an elderly asian woman being attacked, but without further confirmation that's impossible to know for sure. Also, that the attack was unprovoked is unknowable. The fact that a specific age is mentioned implies that there's more information available to those reporting it than what is seen in the post, but the post itself is useless as a source of facts.
    – barbecue
    Mar 23, 2021 at 18:40
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    No doubt it is a notable claim if Nasheed made it, but I don't see why anyone would be skeptical. Based purely on aggregate crime victimization statistics, there are likely hundreds of robberies perpetrated every day against Asian Americans. Some of them are undoubtedly committed by Black people (and some by White people, by Asian people, and so forth). What would be the cause for doubt here? It is also hard to imagine why anyone would fake a video that could probably be found a hundred times over online, just because robberies are so common and phones are ubiquitous.
    – Obie 2.0
    Mar 23, 2021 at 20:41
  • OK, "dozens" might be more accurate.
    – Obie 2.0
    Mar 23, 2021 at 20:46
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    IMX, Tariq Nasheed labelling something as "anti-Black propaganda" is Bayesian evidence in favour of its legitimacy.
    – Karl Knechtel
    Mar 23, 2021 at 23:24
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    I hate to put the kibosh on a popular question, but this type of thing is exactly why we have the no current events policy. The current answer demonstrates the best we can do, which is "well, if you trust all these news media reporting like it's real that have at times reported other falsities, sure".
    – user11643
    Mar 24, 2021 at 2:47

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Evidence

It all depends upon what level of evidence you require really, but according to several mainstream sources, including "The Charlotte Observer", the footage is currently believed to be authentic, and not a deepfake.

Charlotte Observer

Man robs 69-year-old Asian woman in attack caught on video, California cops say

Yahoo news

Yahoo news have also put their name to this story.

Yahoo.com

69-Year-Old Woman Attacked During Violent Robbery in Daly City

Other news outlets

Other news outlets running the story include Cbslocal, The Sacramento Bee and Easy Bay Times.

Is this video of an attack on an elderly Asian woman real?

Until mainstream news outlets begin issuing apologies and admitting to mistakes, it would appear that the footage is considered authentic by most reputable outlets that respect libel laws

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    Of course, there is an implicit claim that the video is an instance of hate crime. While it certainly may be, there are a lot of random robberies out there every day. Concretely, in 2019, there were around 250,000 reported robberies in the US. If there were no racial or ethnic differences in the likelihood of being a victim of robbery, we would expect around 12,500 of these to be against Asian Americans. By contrast, despite a huge surge in hate crimes against Asian Americans in 2020, there were a few thousand reported instances of hate crimes or abuse against them.
    – Obie 2.0
    Mar 23, 2021 at 20:29
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    This is taking the information from Stop Asian American Pacific Islander Hate, which one would expect to tend toward higher figures, and which seems to count instances of bigotry that would not rise to the level of crimes. I think we can assume that most of these instances are not robbery. So without additional evidence (e.g., that the robber had a pattern of targeting Asian-Americans, that they had anti-Asian social media posts, that they said some insult to their target), it is likely not at all guaranteed that there was any anti-Asian motive to their crime.
    – Obie 2.0
    Mar 23, 2021 at 20:30

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