The high school buddies who trolled the streets looking for Hispanics to attack called it “beaner hopping.”
Anthony Harfford told police that he and his friends didn’t do it often: “Maybe only once a week.”
Before Ecuadorean immigrant Marcelo Lucero was stabbed to death on Nov. 8, 2008, Suffolk County in eastern Long
Island had already suffered a string high-profile attacks on the area’s growing Hispanic population.
But it wasn’t until the seven teens accused in Lucero’s killing told police of the other attacks — and Hispanic residents long silent about hate crimes came forward to confirm the stories — that officials began to see the threat.
Last year’s slaying put a national spotlight on Long Island race relations and inspired the U.S. Justice Department to launch a probe into hate crimes and the police handling of them. A national civil rights group released a study that found “a pervasive climate of fear in the Latino community.”
Just weeks after presiding at a funeral for Lucero, a preacher invited Hispanic crime victims to share their experiences. Dozens came forward. Many said they long had declined to contact police in fear that they could be identified and deported as illegal aliens.
“It was a bunch of people relieved that someone was listening,” the Rev. Dwight Lee Wolter said. “They just wanted some sort of witness that their story was worth telling.”
Many were unable to identify attackers, but prosecutors gleaned enough evidence to file charges in eight other attacks against the teens accused of attacking Lucero.
One man came to the church with his telephone answering machine wrapped in plastic, Wolter said. He had received threatening phone calls from his landlord, peppered with anti-Hispanic slurs, and wanted advice on making it stop.
Wolter is hosting an interfaith service Saturday night, after a candlelight vigil organized by Lucero’s family at the spot where he died.
Foster Maer, an attorney for Manhattan-based LatinoJustice, which called for the Justice Department investigation, said the Lucero killing “raised everybody’s awareness of how bad it is.”
Suffolk County Police Commissioner Richard Dormer said officers don’t ask victims whether they’re illegal immigrants. He said the Justice Department probe would exonerate the department.
Dormer assigned a Hispanic officer to command a local precinct after the killing.
Lucero, 37, came to the United States when he was 21 and worked as a dry cleaner. He was walking with a friend shortly before midnight near a train station when they were confronted by a teenage mob. His friend ran away but Lucero was surrounded, prosecutors say.
He tried to fight back, flailing at the assailants with his belt. At some point, 18-year-old Jeffrey Conroy plunged a knife into Lucero’s chest, prosecutors said.
They strengthened their case against the teens this week when one, Nicholas Hausch, pleaded guilty to conspiracy and hate-crime charges and agreed to testify against the others.
Hausch also admitted participating in other attacks on Hispanics during which he and his cohorts used racial epithets when confronting victims. Hausch said they fired a BB gun at one Hispanic man.
William Keahon, the attorney who represents Conroy, told the Newsday newspaper that he could discredit Hausch’s testimony. “I guarantee the jury will not believe a word that comes out of his mouth,” Keahon was quoted as saying.
Keahon did not return a telephone call from The Associated Press.
Thousands of Hispanics have settled in Suffolk County over the past decade. U.S. Census figures show the number of Hispanics more than doubled from 7.1 percent of the population in 1990 to 13.7 percent in 2008.
The Southern Poverty Law Center report titled “Climate of Fear: Latino Immigrants in Suffolk County,” catalogued a litany of anti-immigrant attacks over the past decade.
Two men were imprisoned for attempted murder after luring two Mexican laborers to a warehouse in 2000. The attackers claimed to be offering work — but pummeled them with shovels.
In August, three young men were charged with hate crimes in the robbery and beating of an Ecuadorean man near the spot where Lucero was killed. Police said one man punched 22-year-old day labor Milton Balbuca in the face while the others kicked and punched him, yelling anti-Mexican slurs.
Margarita Espada, a playwright and Puerto Rican immigrant, has written “What Killed Marcelo Lucero” for a local theater. The production features vignettes about the experiences of whites and Hispanics on Long Island.
“People will have the opportunity to see what happened,” she said. “It’s a long-term issue because there is no trust. There’s no hope.”
Obdulio deLeon, a cast member who arrived from Guatemala 23 years ago, says even now, newcomers live in fear. The volunteer paramedic said some are even afraid to call for a doctor when they’re sick.
“They don’t want to call 911,” he said. “They don’t want to call the ambulance or call police for anything. If they get beat up or they get picked on, they just let it be.”
Copyright 2009 The Associated Press.