New York homeowner who once spoke out against crime arrested for allegedly beating menacing vagrant

A Chinatown landlord who spoke out bitterly against crime after the high-profile killing of one of his tenants brutally beat an apparently homeless man who was holding a makeshift gun Saturday, prosecutors and police sources said.

The owner, Brian Chin, 32, was charged with felony assault for the overnight attack that left the drifter hospitalized with injuries so severe he was unable to tell investigators his own name, sources said Sunday.

A police source said the beaten man was also charged with threatening to make threats for his role in the fight, which began around 8:30 p.m. near Chrystie and Grand streets in Manhattan.

The homeless man was sleeping in a corner when Chin allegedly put on black gloves and then kicked the unidentified victim three times, according to a criminal complaint.

The alleged victim woke up and picked up several items before Chin and the victim separated.

But a few minutes later, the two men returned to the same place.

According to police sources, CCTV footage taken at the scene shows the homeless man breaking a wooden chair and then threateningly brandishing a piece of wood at Chin.

The makeshift club had a nail at the end, a police source said.

In the video, the homeless man then appears to brandish the gun at Chin.

Chin charged the man, knocking him to the ground and punching him in the head several times, while also appearing to kick him.

He allegedly punched the victim in the face and head six times before the man lay on his back motionless, the complaint states.

According to the complaint, blood was streaming from the unidentified man's face as he struggled to get up when authorities arrived. When the homeless man tried to get up, he fell backward and hit his head on the subway station railing.

The drifter was rushed to Bellevue Hospital with multiple facial fractures and a fractured skull, the complaint states.

He remains intubated and on life support Sunday afternoon.

Chin, who is cooperating with police, told police the homeless man was harassing people before Chin kicked him, the source said.

The source suggested the landlord may be traumatized after one of the tenants in his Chinatown building was fatally stabbed by a random sicko in 2022.

In that murder, Chinatown producer Christina Yuna Lee, 35, was followed home by Assamad Nash, 27, and stabbed 40 times in his own kitchen. Nash pleaded guilty last month to the killing.

Chin spoke to the Post after a memorial for Lee was vandalized shortly after his killing, saying he and the Asian community were “tired of being attacked.”

The owner was released on bail on Sunday on assault charges and is due to appear in court again on October 10.