Thien Ly's surveillance camera captures the moment last Wednesday evening when he was about to take his 3-year-old and 20-month-old to the park after work when suddenly a man drives up and asks "what flag is that?" and points to the flag near Ly's garage.
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Mistakenly thinking the man was asking about his bicycle, not the dinosaur flag Ly's bought for his 3-year-old son, he answers by saying the brand of the bike.
The man appears to be unsatisfied with Ly's answer and that's when things start getting awkward.
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The man can be heard saying on surveillance, "Is that a Filipino thing?"
Ly believes the man may have mistaken the brand of the bicycle, Taga with Tagalog, a language spoken in the Philippines. Ly by the way, is Vietnamese.
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The man's questions get more bizarre and offensive.
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"What's your favorite charity homie? What's your favorite charity?"
Then the man can be heard saying, "I'm sure your marriage is going so well...you're a weirdo, a creep. A pedophile creep."
The man even curses in front of Ly's children asking "can't you answer my simple f**king question?"
Ly staying calm through it all despite the man threatening to come back to the home later to talk to his wife. What happened was much worse.
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San Jose police say the man returned several hours later to commit vandalism.
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"He came back and he smashed both of my cars with weights," says Ly, who holds up the two-and-a-half pound circular weight he found in-between his children's car seats in the back row of one vandalized car.
While San Jose police say the incident doesn't appear to be hate-motivated Ly can't help but think he was targeted because of his race.
"At first he thought I was Filipino because I can pass for Filipino but I'm actually Vietnamese," said Ly.
This is why he's speaking out: to protect his usually quiet neighborhood.
"Whoever this person is I hope they get caught so this doesn't happen to anyone else. I want to shine light on this and make sure it's safe for everyone and safe for my kids growing up in this neighborhood," said Ly.