Horrible night: On Aug. 20, between 9 p.m. and 9:30 p.m., Doan was home alone when an aggressive banging at her door riled her dog into barking. She thought her dog wanted to go outside, so she leashed him and opened the door. What was waiting for her were five teenage boys who hurled eggs, rocks, racial slurs and curses, according to her granddaughter Cindy Tran to Ottawa Citizen.

• Doan doesn’t speak or understand much English but she made out snippets of what she could: “F**k you, f**k, f**k, f**k,” the teens said.
• After that, the teens started egging her house. One of them, believed to be between 15 to 17 years old, chucked a rock at her face, striking her left cheekbone and bruising her eye, according to the Pembroke Observer.
• Tran said that this caused her grandmother’s eye to swell and “[rendered] her blind for a few hours.”
• As Doan stumbled back into her house, she called out saying “Help me. Somebody help me,” in broken English, hoping her neighbors would hear.

Police search: Shortly after the incident, roughly 10:30 p.m. that day, Doan’s grandchildren, including Tran, arrived to take her to the Pembroke Regional Hospital and speak with the Ontario Provincial Police officers (OPP) until 4 a.m. about the assault. Tran said an OPP officer called her and confirmed that the neighbors heard racial slurs directed at her grandmother.

• The teens allegedly returned two more times after the initial attack to egg Doan’s house just two days after.
• According to CBC News, in the third instance, “one of the young people was seen yelling and banging on the door.”
• The OPP are investigating this case and looking for “four individuals…between 15 and 17 years of age,” who were, at the time, wearing shorts and baseball caps and known to “travel on bicycles.”
• The investigators are especially interested to hear from those from the Isabella Street area, with home surveillance footage, from Aug. 20 and 22.
• Tran told NextShark, the OPP said, “The investigation is ongoing and progressions have been made.”

Tran’s comments: As one of the few Asian families to grow up in Pembroke, Tran and her family are no strangers to microaggressions and racial slurs. Although it isn’t the first, she said “This has been the most extreme case of racism and discrimination our family has been subjected to.” Tran currently pursues her Master’s of Journalism at Carleton University with a focus on advocacy journalism for marginalized communities; this incident further solidifying her thoughts on how racism is still so prevalent.

Source: NextShark