An Asian American New York City Council candidate was randomly attacked and shoved down a Manhattan subway staircase earlier this month. Susan Lee later said she was in the stairwell when she spotted a woman staring at her, as reported by the New York Post.

“You know she has this mischievous look on her face, and I was just thinking like, ‘Oh gosh, this isn’t good,’” Lee, 42, told the NY Post about the March 17 attack. Then, “[s]he pushed me.”

Woman shoves Asian-American City Council candidate down NYC subway stairs https://t.co/byoSyjhm1D pic.twitter.com/CYEY820pol

— 1010 WINS (@1010WINS) March 25, 2021

The City Council candidate said she wasn’t sure if the woman, whom she said appeared to be homeless, targeted her because of her race or simply because she was alone and an easy target. Yet she wasn’t robbed; just pushed down the stairs. Odd. [Thinking emoji]

The attack follows an uptick in subway crimes, and also comes amid a spike in reported crimes targeting Asians — in NYC and elsewhere, noted the Post earlier this week.

Lee told the paper it could’ve been worse.

“If I wasn’t prepared for her to push me, I would have fallen all the way down the stairs. I was holding onto the rail really tightly and I had my other hand in front of my face.”

Luckily, Lee said, she just fell just a few steps down the stairwell and only suffered a sprained ankle. After the attack, she headed straight home.

“I wanted to be someplace safe,” she said.

NYC city council candidate Susan Lee was pushed down the subway stairs in an attack. The unapprehended perpetrator is a black woman, the victim says. Lee initially was hesitant to report the attack to police. #StopAsianHate https://t.co/siaFf909nv

— Andy Ngô (@MrAndyNgo) March 27, 2021

The “rest of the story,” via the Post: (emphasis mine)

She reported the conflict to cops a few days later [only] after being urged by friends, who thought she should get it on the record.

She said police had her pore over several hundred photos seeking the suspect, without any luck. Lee has [since] described the assailant as a black woman.

Since the random attack, the council candidate, who had been a frequent user of public transport, has only taken the subway twice.

“Now I’m always walking,” said Lee, who is running for a Lower Manhattan seat.

Coupla questions:

Why was Lee initially reticent to report the attack, only doing so after being urged by friends to report it?

Did the attacker single out Lee because she was an Asian American — particularly given the “coincidental” uptick in crimes against the Asian American community at large?

If so, was the attack a hate crime? Is that why Lee had to be pushed by friends to report it?

Was Lee reluctant to report the crime, given that she’s a City Council candidate and as a result was afraid of the repercussions if she reported the attack?

Finally, would Lee have reported the attack if her assailant had been a white woman?

We can only speculate at this point, of course.

But God knows that far worse accusations have been levied against alleged white assailants — with far less circumstantial evidence to back them up.