Residents on edge amid CA Chinatown crime wave

A crime wave in Oakland, California's Chinatown has rankled the community heading into the Lunar New Year, prompting celebrities to offer a reward to fight anti-Asian harassment.

This report produced by Yahaira Jacquez.

In late January, a suspect was caught on camera violently shoving a 91-year-old Asian man to the ground in Oakland, California's Chinatown District.

It was one of three similar incidents captured by surveillance camera in Chinatown that day, allegedly perpetrated by the same person.

The video sparked outrage online and caught the attention of Chinese-American actor Daniel Wu, who grew up in the Bay Area.

"My dad is 91 so I thought about that.

I often frequented Chinatown as a kid.

And my aunt had a bakery in Chinatown so I know that area really well.

So it really hit home." The incidents prompted Wu to team up with fellow actor Daniel Dae Kim to offer a $25,000 reward for information on the suspect.

KIM: "For us, this is an almost daily occurrence that we see news like this.

And so this reward that we were offering for this single incident was really just the straw that broke the camel's back.

And both Daniel and I thought that we have to do something more than just speak about this, we have to do something more than just retweet, or try and use our platforms to say something.

We needed to put quite frankly our money where our mouth is to raise awareness for it, in a way that we're able to talk about it right now." Oakland Police Chief LeRonne Armstrong thanked the actors efforts to apprehend the suspect, who was later identified as 28-year-old Yahya Muslim and now faces multiple assault charges.

But Chinatown has seen other attacks.

Carl Chan, president of the Oakland Chinatown Chamber of Commerce, described a wave of crime hitting the neighborhood, which has residents and business-owners of Oakland's Chinatown on edge.

"Within the community there are many seniors who live inside Chinatown they are also afraid to walk on their own streets.

Many employees are expressing their fear working in their own stores.

That definitely is impacting the daily life of many residents." To help protect the community, newly sworn in Armstrong said his department is devoting more resources to Chinatown, moving a command post to the district and increasing routine patrols in time for the Lunar New Year on Friday.