A person riding a bike is wanted for what law enforcement is calling a racially motivated assault. It happened August 21st just before 3:00 pm at the intersection SW 2nd Avenue and Pine in downtown Portland.
The Portland Police Bureau released a photo of the suspect on Monday (9/4), along with a $2,500 cash reward for any information that leads to an arrest. The photo shows a bike rider on a flat-bar road bike with a bag in its front rack and the person is wearing a large backpack — the type typically used by delivery riders.
According to the PPB, the bike rider spat on and physically assaulted a group of people who are Asian. One of them was Tommy Ly, owner of a nearby business. Here’s what Ly told KGW:
… he and his family were walking in a crosswalk when the man on a bike “came barreling down” and almost hit his mom. He told the man to watch out and that’s when the situation escalated.
“He turned back around and just started yelling racial slurs at us… stuff I don’t really want to repeat anymore,” Ly told KGW in an interview after the assault.
Ly also said that the man flicked a burning cigarette at his mom and threw a punch at him. He said that’s when he warned the man that he was armed with mace.
“He just biked back around, got close to my mom and spit in her face and at that point I just lost it, and just grabbed my mace and emptied the whole can straight into his face and then he just biked off,” Ly said.
Unfortunately, this is not the first time our community has confronted anti-Asian bias.
In 2020, a bike shop owner in Hood River apologized after he posted anti-Asian sentiment on Instagram related to the coronavirus outbreak. In 2022, Portland Police said that racial bias was behind an assault of a Japanese family bicycling on the Eastbank Esplanade. And just this week a man was charged with stabbing two teens on a MAX train allegedly, “because of his perception of the victims’ race.”
A report published by the nonprofit Community Cycling Center last week found that among some east Portlanders, “people of color felt especially unsafe while biking due to concerns of racism and race-based violence, from individuals or police officers.” And the City of Portland’s latest Safe Routes to School Strategic Plan cited a fear of traveling in public by students and families of color as one reason some people don’t choose to walk, bike, or take transit.
If you know the identity of the bike rider in the photo above, you can contact the PPB non-emergency line at (503) 823-3333 or share your tip anonymously online via CrimeStoppers.
I’m a little sad reading some of the comments following this article. Unless I’m misreading their posts, a number of people are critical of Jonathan for posting the story and/or for how he’s asking people for support for the Ly family and help in identifying the assailant. I’d have expected readers of this blog to stand together, unanimously to want to make everyone feel safe and welcome in our streets. Safe from collisions with trucks and SUVs and semis sure, but safe from racist abuse as well. Is it inappropriate to use a biking website for this purpose? Hell, no! Everybody should be on board, everywhere. Should we take note that the police might not have responded if the victim were, say, a barrista or a homeless person rather than a business owner? OK, probably true and point taken. But business owners have also been ethnically cleansed and murdered, too, and all members of minority communities should be supported. I’m grateful to Jonathan for letting me know about this and giving us all an opportunity to take a stand, possibly to hold this SOB accountable, and possibly also to make all minority people feel less vulnerable and alone.
Doesn’t looks like anyone I’ve ever seen around any of the group rides/bike community events
We’re supposed to know who this drug-addled maniac is, just because he happens to be riding a bike?
Well, no, that’s not the point. Photos like this are circulated so that any citizen who sees the person can report it. The photo is grainy but there’s enough detail of the rider’s appearance, posture, gear and bicycle that it will be hard for him to hide.
This has nothing to do with bike riders v. the world, if that’s a thing. Dude was carrying around a lot of hate and felt ok acting it out. I’m really sorry and sad that it has come to this.
We have a lot of crime in this city, including several recent attacks on people of Asian descent in the past few years. Some involved bikes and others did not. But this one and the esplanade assault only seem to be posted here because a bike was somehow involved?
yep. because a bike was involved. This is bikeportland. That’s what we do.
But it’s not all we do! – we do a lot more.
Glad you ran this story, BTW. A POS guy like the one in the photo doesn’t represent me, but people riding bikes do bad things sometimes and when they do we need to own their bad behavior and report them.
As I’ve said many times, “jerks will be jerks, regardless of their means of conveyance.” Nobody has cornered the market on aggressive travelers (though the automotive and commercial flight industries try).
yes. A lot of bike riders view our stories, thus increasing the chance that someone in our audience can ID this person.
There is no greater martyr than the bicycle rider; they can do no wrong, yet they have things worse than anyone and everyone forever.
Except when the bicycle rider is beating up random POC on the streets of Portland. Then “we” have no idea who that guy is and he doesn’t represent “us”
Are you saying you recognize him? If you know something, say something, so we can get this guy arrested.
That’s a strange response to someone simply saying they don’t think they’ve seen the person in the picture. Jay Cee said nothing close to your characterization of their comment.
It’s horrible that anyone is racially targeted, but it seems like there’s more effort being put into this (i.e. cash reward) than is put into tracking down hit-and-run drivers who kill or seriously injure someone.
Whataboutism making excuses for targeted phyiscal attacks against POC? Thanks BikePortland comment section, I think I’ve seen it all now.
That is a preposterously bad faith reading of this comment. In what universe is “It’s horrible that anyone is racially targeted” making excuses? It is a direct and unambiguous denunciation of what happened. There is not a single word that could be construed in anyway as excuse making.
I suspect this is because the victim was a business owner as opposed to just a random person biking to/fro work or school or just out enjoying a bike ride or a homeless or elderly person trying to cross the street.
But what’s really ironic, tragic and angering is that cops all over this country do much worse things every day to BiPoc, LGTBQ, homeless folks & people suffering mental health issues with minimal if any accountability and consequences. That’s just another Tuesday in America.
It’s easier to be on the lookout for someone when you’re moving 12mph than 45mph.
BikePortland would be an optimal place to post every suspected bully and off-leash puppy in the city, if its comment section was a centralized coordinated community conversation and not a 24hr drive-thru of people hungry for anger and guaranteed, whatever their tastes, to find something for them on the menu.
Whenever someone pretends to be outraged or incredulous on this forum I just picture them licking their chops.
I wonder if this subject is “street involved”. Worth it to see if Transition Projects Day Center on NW Broadway would allow you to post the flyer at their center…