{"id":137035,"date":"2026-01-17T01:20:10","date_gmt":"2026-01-17T01:20:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/137035\/"},"modified":"2026-01-17T01:20:10","modified_gmt":"2026-01-17T01:20:10","slug":"man-found-guilty-of-involuntary-manslaughter-of-san-francisco-thai-grandfather","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/137035\/","title":{"rendered":"Man found guilty of involuntary manslaughter of San Francisco Thai grandfather"},"content":{"rendered":"<p datatype=\"p\" data-qa=\"Component-Component\" class=\"e8zc9q40 css-1c6uqr6 ec74h0k1\">A man has been found guilty of involuntary manslaughter in the death of an elderly Thai man whose 2021 killing in San Francisco helped spark a national movement against anti-Asian-American violence.<\/p>\n<p datatype=\"p\" data-qa=\"Component-Component\" class=\"e8zc9q40 css-1c6uqr6 ec74h0k1\">A jury did not find Antoine Watson, 24, guilty of murder when it returned a verdict on Thursday for the January 2021 attack on Vicha Ratanapakdee, 84. Jurors found Watson guilty on the lesser charges of involuntary manslaughter and assault.<\/p>\n<p datatype=\"p\" data-qa=\"Component-Component\" class=\"e8zc9q40 css-1c6uqr6 ec74h0k1\">The office of San Francisco District Attorney Brooke Jenkins declined to comment, saying that the jury was still empanelled. Jurors will return on January 26 to hear arguments on aggravating factors, and sentencing will be scheduled once that is completed, the office said in an email.<\/p>\n<p datatype=\"p\" data-qa=\"Component-Component\" class=\"e8zc9q40 css-1c6uqr6 ec74h0k1\">Vicha Ratanapakdee was out for his usual morning walk in the quiet neighbourhood he lived in with his wife, daughter and her family when Watson charged at him and knocked him to the ground.<\/p>\n<p datatype=\"p\" data-qa=\"Component-Component\" class=\"e8zc9q40 css-1c6uqr6 ec74h0k1\">The encounter was captured on a neighbour\u2019s security camera. Ratanapakdee never regained consciousness and died two days later.<\/p>\n<p datatype=\"p\" data-qa=\"Component-Component\" class=\"e8zc9q40 css-1c6uqr6 ec74h0k1\">His family says he was attacked because of his race, but hate crime charges were not filed and the argument was not raised in trial. Prosecutors have said hate crimes are difficult to prove absent statements by the suspect.<\/p>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" alt=\"Monthanus Ratanapakdee holds a photo of her father, Vicha Ratanapakdee, in January 2022, in front of the San Francisco apartment building where he was attacked a year earlier. Photo: AP\" data-qa=\"BaseImage-handleRenderImage-StyledImage\" class=\"e1gf69pb2 css-6ikqhs e445x7d0\" loading=\"lazy\" src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/01\/8903b31f-6e3b-486a-9342-19f59be3b209_6916af8c.jpg\" title=\"Monthanus Ratanapakdee holds a photo of her father, Vicha Ratanapakdee, in January 2022, in front of the San Francisco apartment building where he was attacked a year earlier. Photo: AP\"\/>Monthanus Ratanapakdee holds a photo of her father, Vicha Ratanapakdee, in January 2022, in front of the San Francisco apartment building where he was attacked a year earlier. Photo: AP<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A man has been found guilty of involuntary manslaughter in the death of an elderly Thai man whose&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":137036,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[30],"tags":[69661,64533,26974,7972,3573,3984,36818,69660,69664,101,30139,103,102,69662,104,106,105,69666,69665,64532,69663],"class_list":["post-137035","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-san-francisco","tag-anti-asian-american-violence","tag-antoine-watson","tag-asian-americans","tag-brooke-jenkins","tag-china","tag-covid-19-pandemic","tag-involuntary-manslaughter","tag-kron-tv","tag-mano-raju","tag-san-francisco","tag-san-francisco-district-attorney","tag-san-francisco-headlines","tag-san-francisco-news","tag-san-francisco-public-defender","tag-sf","tag-sf-headlines","tag-sf-news","tag-stop-aapi-hate","tag-thai-man","tag-vicha-ratanapakdee","tag-wuhan"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/137035","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=137035"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/137035\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/137036"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=137035"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=137035"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=137035"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}