Dozens of activists rallied on Friday, June 17, standing beside members of a Filipino-American family who were the victims of an anti-Asian attack in May when a man in a Jeep bumped their vehicle as they waited in the drive-through of a McDonald’s in North Hollywood.

The Roque family was surrounded by activists gathered outside a Van Nuys courthouse calling for justice to be brought against suspect, Nicholas Weber, who has been charged for assaulting the family’s father and mother who, along with their daughter, were getting fries at a McDonald’s on Victory Boulevard, on May 13.

“We’re here to hold the government accountable for their lack of response and to demand that District Attorney George Gascon prosecute Nicholas Weber to the fullest extent of the law,” said Katie Joaquin, board president of the Filipino Migrant Center.

The victims allege that the father suffered a broken rib and the mother was strangled but survived. In a video by their daughter, a man can be seen verbally attacking the family with racist language and motions mocking their Asian background.

The District Attorney’s Office pressed charges against Weber on June 5 for hate-motivated battery, including a felony offense connected to “serious bodily injury.” An arrest warrant was issued for Weber after he failed to appear for a June 8 court hearing.

Patricia Roque, the daughter, said they are “still fearful for our lives,” and have learned that the alleged attacker lives near them in North Hollywood. The family and neighbors are concerned that he will continue to target them.

The activists who gathered on Friday belong to groups active in the Filipino community, including those who fight for labor rights. They chanted “Justice for the Roque family,” and urged authorities to do more to investigate and prosecute the hate-crime case.

Some were concerned that the case was not being fully investigated by the Los Angeles Police Department.

Joaquin, of the Filipino Migrant Center, said members of the Roque family had taken up causes for their community, and now it was the community’s turn to stand up for the family.

She said she first met the mother, Nerissa Roque, when she fought to “recover back wages (for healthcare workers) from a big millionaire employer.”

Nerissa’s son, Patrick, is an activist “fighting for the rights and welfare of migrant workers,” Joaquin said.

Other groups who rallied behind the family included the National Alliance for Filipino Concerns (NAFCON), Migrante Los Angeles, Kabataan Alliance, the Bayanihan Kollective, and Anakbayan.

Patricia Roque told the Los Angeles Daily News she was disappointed by law enforcement’s response to the attack on her parents. She said police arrived an hour after the incident was reported. She alleged that Weber was taken to a hospital, released and issued a citation. She says officers told her family that Weber should have been taken to an LAPD station.

Now, she’s worried that Weber may target her family and others, after he failed to show up for his hearing.

The family’s attorney, Sandy Roxas, claimed on Friday that it often takes such rallies to spur law enforcement to take hate-crime cases seriously.

“It’s really unfortunate that these kinds of Asian hate cases are not really a priority, unless the media and the community get involved, and attorneys get involved,” Roxas said.

The incident comes after a string of anti-Asian hate incidents nationally and in Orange County. Locally, in 2020, a Filipino-American woman was the victim of verbal abuse from a woman who filmed her while while screaming racial epithets.

Patricia Roque, who described herself as an introvert, said she has decided to speak out more because people in her community and other communities vulnerable to hate attacks should not have to face such a reality.

At one point, she cried while listening to a performer recite a poem about attacks on Asian women. She has been composed during media interviews about the attack at McDonald’s, she said, but in that moment says, “It hit me that the Filipino community … the Asian community and other vulnerable communities have been dealing with this for years.”

“And it just hit me that this has been going on for so long, and we just stood back and watched it happen, and that’s unfortunate,” she said.