Possible Leads In Taped Homeless Beating

Mar. 7 - KGO (KGO) -- It's all caught on video tape -- a homeless man sleeping outside a Chinatown store when he's beaten. Now police have leads on some possible suspects and a car.

ABC7 has learned that officers from the Asian Gang Task Force have been called in to help identify the suspects on the tape.

Officers from CSI were at the Canton Flower Shop Tuesday looking at the images from the security camera that captured the beating.

Early Sunday morning, a homeless man sleeping on the sidewalk just outside the shop was beaten and kicked repeatedly by a group of young men.

Police were able to enhance the digital images which now show the assailants' car, possibly a gray or silver Honda Civic with a missing hubcap on the front passenger wheel.

The enhanced security video also shows four, not three assailants, as investigators initially believed.

Officers from CSI will now try to improve the quality of these two pictures, which show two of the suspects' faces, one of them looking straight in the camera's direction.

Ofc. Roland Tolosa, San Francisco Police Dept.: "We've got some great images right now. However there are other files we're looking at because there was possibly four or five other cameras we need to look at."

Police have now identified the victim based on information from his personal belongings which he left behind as he ran away.

Shop owner Ed Jew turned the man's possessions over to police.

Ed Jew, flower shop owner: "Basically he was staying here for six months on and off and he was very courteous, he cleaned up after himself, took his time. He was very orderly."

The beating coincidentally happened on Waverly Place, right across the street from the headquarters of the venerable Chinatown Association Hop Sing Tong.

Last week, one of its board members Allen Leong was killed execution style by an unknown assailant.

The two violent crimes made front page news in the Chinese Press.

John Owings has lived on the streets of Chinatown for the past five years. He says a group of young Asians have been harassing homeless people here for some time now, but the beating came as a shock.

John Owings, homeless person: "Harass you like & they might take their bottle away or tease them but not really get violent with them."

Police have identified the victim, but they have yet to find him.

Anyone with information on the assault or the suspects is asked to call the general works detail at (415) 553-1141 or the Police Department's tip line at (415) 575-4444.

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