A man faces hate crime charges after allegedly launching a racially-motivated attack in San Francisco against a Black chef who starred in a Netflix limited series.
Wendy Drew, a chef who founded and appears in the series “You Are What You Eat: A Twin Experiment,” recounted to multiple news outlets the harrowing moments when she was attacked.
Drew said she was leaving Cafe Terminus on California Street at 9:30 p.m. on Sunday, Sept. 1, when a man walking his dog passing her on the sidewalk called her a racial slur, taking her by surprise.
“I’m on the phone with my mom, and this regular-looking guy walking his dog walks by and calls me the N-word,” Drew told KTVU.
She said she turned to confront the man when he suddenly struck her on the head and began relentlessly punching her in the face, literally adding injury to insult.
“It was very fast like three, four, five punches. And then I grabbed him. And I was like, no you’re not getting away with doing this to me,” Drew said. “And that’s when he pushes me to the ground, and I stood up and pushed him into the liquor store.”
Surveillance footage from inside the liquor store captured the attack and showed Drew going to blows with the man. A bystander also joined Drew and pepper-sprayed her assailant.
At one point, the attacker is seen in the video trying to get away and leave the liquor store, but Drew persistently works to prevent him from fleeing, even going so far as to close and block the entrance. He then shoves her aside and walks outside as Drew follows behind him, calling for help.
“‘Call 911!’ I kept screaming. I said, ‘You’re not getting away. You are going to jail today,'” Drew said.
Drew’s boyfriend and a few others rushed out of Cafe Terminus to help restrain the man after hearing Drew’s pleas for help. When police arrived, they took him into custody.
Authorities identified the suspect as 31-year-old Irvin Alberto Rivera-Lara and charged him with assault likely to cause significant bodily injury, committing a hate crime, and providing false information to an officer.
Drew was treated at a local hospital for a concussion and broken nose that she sustained in the attack, as well as a gash near her eye that had to be glued shut.
“I’m really grateful that, although I was being beaten, I was thinking, ‘How do I get this person off the streets?'” Drew said.
After reviewing the case, local prosecutors formally charged Rivera-Lara with assault with force likely to cause great bodily injury and battery with serious bodily injury. Both charges will be prosecuted as hate crimes.
“Hate crimes have no place in our community and must be addressed swiftly by the criminal justice system,” District Attorney Brooke Jenkins said in a statement following the assault on Drew. “Attacks like this demean and degrade individuals while also shaking whole communities. I will do everything in my power to ensure there is accountability and justice in this case.”
Rivera was arrested last year after being accused of attacking a sandwich shop owner in San Francisco who caught him urinating on some trash cans near the store.
