Netflix chef Wendy Drew describes fighting off racist attacker in San Francisco
A San Francisco chef featured on a Netflix series is recovering after a brutal attack in the city's Financial District by a man who she says called her a racial slur.
Liquor store security cameras recorded the terrifying moment on Sunday evening when Wendy Drew, who appeared in the series "You Are What You Eat: A Twin Experiment," was attacked in the city's Financial District by a man walking his dog after she had just left a restaurant.
"This guy looks pretty normal, with this dog, walks by and he calls me the N-word, right? And I was like, excuse me, why are you calling me that? So he comes back and says what? Then he starts pummelling, and just knocks me down," said Drew.
The fighting escalated as Drew tried to block the man's punches. Quick thinking led her to nearby Drumm Liquor and Deli where she knew security cameras would capture the incident.
Footage shows her holding her attacker in place while shouting for customers to call the police. One man came forward to spray her assailant with pepper spray before exiting the store. Unfortunately for Drew, the man didn't respond to the spray at all.
"I started screaming, call 911 call 911 and I was holding the guy, and I'm like, 'I'm not letting you go. You're going to jail,'" she said.
Drew fought off her attacker for nearly five minutes. She tried blocking his exit until the police came, but he managed to shove her aside before they arrived. She chased her attacker up the dark street to the restaurant where horrified onlookers saw her desperately try to keep her assailant from escaping.
A group of staff and customers from the restaurant raced to her rescue quickly pinning the man to the ground until police arrived. Drew said her twin sister, Pam, who was in the restaurant at the time, estimated the police responded in six minutes.
"I got up, and I'm like, no, go after him. Wendy, just keep going after him," she said.
Police identified the man as 31-year-old Irvin Rivera-Lara. He was arrested on charges of assault likely to cause great bodily injury, committing a hate crime, and providing false information to a peace officer.
On Thursday, San Francisco District Attorney Brooke Jenkins announced Rivera-Lara would face hate crime special allegations for assault and battery charges and be arraigned Thursday afternoon. Prosecutors are seeking pre-trial detention because of the public safety risk he poses, the District Attorney's Office said.
Last year, Rivera-Lara was booked on battery charges for allegedly attacking another chef outside of a restaurant. Drew and her twin sister, Pam, think the attacks are premeditated and motivated by hate.
"When he obviously sees Wendy, he sees a black woman, and what is the trigger word for black people, the n-word," said Pam Drew. "So he's obviously doing things to trigger people's emotions."
Omar Idlabi, the owner of Drumm Liquor and Deli, said that incidents like these are not uncommon for his shop. While his store is a daily target of robberies and threats, he had never seen anything quite like what happened to Drew.
"I feel sorry for her. Really, very sorry," Idalbi said. "Like she's a lady and the guy, he should be in jail, he said.
Now that the incident is behind her, Drew and her sister are frightened, but they're also angry.
"You know, we know we've got this profile of who's gonna attack you, who's gonna cause you harm, but this guy did not fit that profile," she said.
While she recovers, Drew wants the city, and women especially, to heed her story and stay on alert.
