Rajachack back at work Wednesday, mostly healed.
Ketkeo Rajachack had one question as teens were pounding on her inside the Temple Street Garage: Why?
The owner of the downtown Laotian restaurant Pho Ketkeo had made eye contact with the eight teenagers this past Friday afternoon after picking up bean sprouts at a store. They were between the ages of 15 and 17, she estimated. Then as she was leaving her car, they knocked her to the ground from behind.
At first, she thought it was an accident and asked what was happening. Then one teen slammed Rajachack’s head into the ground. Others started kicking her. They grabbed her purse and got into her car.
At that moment, one attacker said that someone was coming. They ran away.
“I was scared. I don’t know why they would do something like that,” Rajachack said. “They’re kids.”
Scared To Go Back To Work
Emily Hays Photo
Rajachack outside her restaurant after the April attack.
It was the second attack Rajachack has experienced in two months. In April, a vandal dented her car and shattered the window of one of her staff members’ vehicles. At the time, they wondered whether they were being targeted in a wave of anti-Asian violence. Both cars were parked on the street outside the restaurant.
Friday’s beating left Rajachack with a bloody nose and swollen, bleeding lips. She had scratches on her face and arms. Because she lost consciousness a few times during the beating, she went to the hospital as soon as help arrived on the scene.
Almost all of the injuries have healed now. The scrape remains visible on her arm; her ribs and head continue to ache.
Rajachack had considered closing her restaurant in April but decided to stay open. After Friday’s attack, she did keep the store dark for a few days while she rested.
Wednesday was her first day back in the kitchen after the attack. Her daughter, Christine Son, wanted her to keep Pho Ketkeo closed for a week. Rajachack said that she was too worried about paying her bills — her mortgage, her car payments, the rent for the restaurant, utilities — to agree to that plan.
“I’m scared, but I have to,” Rajachack said.
The Covid-19 pandemic and the economic shutdown have drastically reduced the restaurant’s business.
“We’re all suffering from Covid-19. This is just adding more stress,” Son said.
Safety Measures
The Temple Street area around Pho Ketkeo, emptier than usual during the Covid-19 pandemic.
Son said that she wanted to review the garage’s footage immediately in case it got automatically deleted over the weekend. She said that more cameras and security guards in the garage would make her and her mother feel safer.
She said that others who park their cars in Temple Street Garage have reached out to say that they have also felt unsafe and have called the police department to increase security there.
Top downtown cop Lt. Sean Maher said that he has worked with the city traffic department to increase the security beats in the garage. His officers are now allowed to drive through the garage as well, rather than just using bicycles as they had prior to the pandemic.
Maher said these measures are to help those who use the garage feel safer. He said police have been called to the garage 12 times this year. The other situations were all property-related.
“Statistically it is a safe garage,” Maher said. “This was pretty much a standalone incident, which we do want to address.”
Two weeks earlier, a federal employee reported being attacked by teens who then stole the employee’s vehicle inside the garage.
Maher said that patrol officers and detectives are investigating Rajachack’s case. He said that they are reviewing the footage and have not yet identified the suspects.
Maher also said that he drove by the restaurant to stop in but it was closed at that point.
Son said that she has been waiting for this kind of personal communication. She did not know that the garage has more security now and wished the police or the city had called to tell her.
Son, who helps manage the restaurant around another full-time job, has implemented a buddy system where servers escort her mom to her car.
“Someone should not have to experience this kind of hate twice in a couple of months. We’re lucky that she’s still here. Do they need to wait until something much worse happens?” Son asked.
Community Support
Rajachack (right) with her daughter, Christine Son, on Wednesday.
When the family posted about the Friday attack on Facebook, supporters asked for a way to pay for Rajachack’s medical bills and help with the restaurant’s lost income while she rested.
Son started a GoFundMe on Saturday and donors met her goal of $5,000 within two days. As of Wednesday evening, 129 people had donated a total of $6,227. Supporters had also helped pay for the car repairs after the April vandalism.
“Thank you, everybody that’s been supporting me,” Rajachack said at the end of the interview, looking teary-eyed.
Son said that the outpouring of community support feels bittersweet, since it follows something so traumatic. She said that it is particularly meaningful in the context of Rajachack’s journey to opening Pho Ketkeo. Rajachack fled Laos as a teen and was resettled in the United States.
“She didn’t have an easy life. Nobody has reached out to help her before. For most of them to be strangers — it touches her,” Son said. “Like with the vandalism, it does help my mom feel like there are good people out there.”
Why the attack? Because under the criminal justice reforms New Haven enthusiastically supported, juveniles face few consequences for criminal actions.