Queen St hate crime: 43-year-old Auckland woman charged with assault

But even with surveillance footage, the police had a hard time identifying her.

Inspector Grant Tetzlaff said police had identified the woman yesterday.

It comes after police responded to reports of a woman allegedly being abusive to staff at a city center store.

When officers radioed a description of the perpetrator at the store, hate crime investigators realized he matched the description of the woman they were looking for, Tetzlaff said.

She was arrested at the store on Sunday, at which time police identified her as a suspect in a previous hate crime.

Police also charged the woman with another count of common assault for Sunday’s incident, as well as drug possession and three counts of assaulting a police officer.

The victim’s handkerchief was torn off, she was knocked to the ground and kicked

The victim of the September 2 incident described in a social media post how her assailant tore her headscarf from behind, shouting at her to “go back to your country.”

She also claimed that there were marks on her neck from the scarf being torn from her head.

She said several bystanders did not intervene even after she was knocked to the ground and kicked, sustaining injuries to her face, back and ribs.

When she reported the attack to the police, she found that none of the bystanders who witnessed the attack contacted them.

Hate crime concerns

The attack comes after growing concern about hate crime in Auckland.

Also in September, a bus driver was attacked in the village of racially charged tirade of passengers who refuse to pay for public transport.

The passenger said to the driver: “This is my country, you are my servant”and then punched him.

A 39-year-old woman was detained in July after an attack on the village a schoolboy with a metal rod on an Auckland bus.

Of the 9,351 hate incidents reported between January 2022 and January 2024, more than a third were against people of Asian descent, 8.9% against people of color and 7.2% against Māori.

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