One of the girls attacked the mother of the three and the person who shot the video. The NYPD's Hate Crimes Task Force is investigating.
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Sue Young says she doesn't regret what she did on board the F train.
"I want to be able to say 'don't do that,'" Young said.
On Thursday evening. Young, her husband, and 11-year-old twin girls were on a southbound train at the West 4th Street Station.
Cellphone video shows the family, who was visiting from Reno, sitting on the left with a group of teens directly across.
Young says the trio started laughing and pointing at them. Trying to defuse the situation, she joined in the laughter.
"Their demeanor completely changed and that's when the F-bombs and threats started," Young added.
Heated words were exchanged between all. You can hear Young's husband calling the teens 'uneducated.'
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As Joanna Lin was taking the video, one of the girls, who police are now looking for, assaulted her three separate times.
"She darted over, took me by the hair, threw me on the ground, and started punching me," Lin said.
Young stood up and said one girl got her in the face. Police are now looking to talk to the girl.
"I pushed her out of my face, that's when the girl who had attacked Joanna started attacking me. The girl in the white shirt and I were both pulling her hair," Young said.
At one point, before it got physical, the train was stopped with the doors open. Young said she didn't want to get off - instead, she wanted to talk it out with the girls, she said.
"I had to defend who I was as a person. I don't back down from words like that," she says.
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The woman was left with bruising and swelling to her head.
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