One of San Francisco’s most contentious criminal cases has been put to rest.
Antoine Watson, who was 19 when he shoved and killed 84-year-old Vicha Ratanapakdee in 2021, was sentenced to three years in state prison and five years of probation by a San Francisco judge on Thursday.
Watson, now 25, has been incarcerated in county jail since 2021, and will receive credit for the time served, meaning that he is eligible to be released on probation this week.
Ratanapakdee was attacked on Jan. 28, 2021, while on a stroll in the Anza Vista neighborhood where he lived. Surveillance video of the attack showed Watson run at full speed into an unaware Ratanapakdee, who died two days later in the hospital.
The killing of “Grandpa Vicha” sparked a firestorm of discourse about crime and punishment, and became a central symbol for San Francisco’s “Stop Asian Hate” movement. The incident also changed the course of local politics: Anger about then-District Attorney Chesa Boudin’s response to the brutal attack, including his decision to not pursue hate-crime charges due to a lack of evidence, was a key part of the 2022 recall of Boudin from office.
In January, a jury convicted Watson of involuntary manslaughter and assault, but acquitted him of murder and elder abuse. Watson’s public defenders argued that he was emotionally disordered on the morning of the attack due to a string of stressful crises in the preceding 24 hours, including a police detainment at gunpoint that resulted in only a citation for Watson.
The killing, Watson’s attorneys argued, was “an impulsive act during an emotional storm.” Video captured before the attack showed Watson screaming and crying while sprinting down a street. Watson told the court that he believed Ratanapakdee had been staring at him in judgment, and that he shoved the older man in a rage without gauging his age or ethnicity. (Footage and witness testimony showed Ratanapakdee was wearing a hat and a mask during the attack).
Ratanapakdee’s family, however, argued from the start that Watson had targeted him deliberately and was a danger to other Asian elders in the city if released. January’s verdict inflamed outrage among Asian American advocates in San Francisco, who claimed it was another example of the criminal justice system failing Asian people.
“The system just told every Asian elder in America: your life is negotiable," Forrest Liu, a political operative who has organized for moderate candidates and causes, said after the verdict in January.
The Ratanpakdee family and the San Francisco District Attorney’s Office pushed for the maximum sentence of nine years to be served in state prison.
San Francisco Superior Court Judge Linda Colfax, however, suggested on Thursday that further prison time would not help Watson’s rehabilitation, noting Watson had expressed remorse and did not appear to be an active danger to the public.
Anita Nabha, a public defender representing Watson, said he will have to live in his mother’s Hayward home with probation check-ins and weekly therapy with a social worker, among other conditions.
