The logical police response to on-street attacks ought to be more foot and squad car patrols, but that’s not happening in most places despite the rise in anti-Asian hate crimes. So they continue, showing no signs of abating…

The head of a Southern California group called Asian-Americans Advancing Justice told one reporter many such crimes go unreported because of language problems, immigrants unable to communicate with police. Plus, she said, “When victims … come forward, having the police say nothing can be done discourages other victims from relying on police.”…

But the mere presence of cops on street patrol could have stopped one early March assault on an elderly Asian man who was seated in a Nob Hill laundromat in San Francisco when at attacker ambushed him. Police presence probably would have spared the death of Vicha Ratanapakdee, an 84-year-old Thai-American beaten to death in broad daylight, also in San Francisco.