Monday, December 08, 2008

Breaking: Anti-gay, anti-Latino slurs shouted at Ecuadorean men during beating in Brooklyn

UPDATE: Namely, the two brothers were drunk and holding each other as they were helping each other to get home, the assailants apparently deduced that they were a gay couple when they noticed the two men. Additional info at "More on Bushwick bias crime against Ecuadorean brothers"
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This morning I got a press conference announcement from City Council Speaker Christine Quinn's office which read, in part, as follows.
Statement by Council Speaker Christine C. Quinn

Re: Alleged Hate Crime in Brooklyn

I was outraged to learn this morning that two men were assaulted at Kossuth Place and Bushwick Avenue in Brooklyn, and especially horrified to learn that anti-LGBT and anti-Latino slurs were used by one or more of the assailants - raising this event to the level of a hate crime.

My office is in touch with the family of the victims and offers our prayers. We have also been in touch with the NYPD's Hate Crimes Task Force, and thank them for their immediate response and hard work. We are confident that those who committed this crime will be apprehended. Together we are calling on all who might have any information about this crime to come forward immediately to the NYPD.

Those who perpetrated this crime must be prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law. This cowardly display of hate against two innocent men only re-enforces the need to continue to inform and educate the public about the destruction that hate can cause.

We all must open our eyes to the hate that exists around us and work together to fight against those that demonize others and allow stereotypes to lead them to acts of unconscionable violence. We are all partners against hate. When we come together, to stand up, every time we witness an act motivated by hate, we will send the message that we will not stand for the destruction that comes along with it.

Members of the City Council, community leaders, clergy, and I will hold a press conference December 8th at 12:30 pm on the steps of City Hall to continue to stand up for the victims and to speak out against this vicious crime and all crimes perpetrated by hate.
I sought information online and just found this from ABC News:
Two Ecuadorian brothers were beaten, one critically, during an apparently unprovoked attack in the Bushwick section of Brooklyn Sunday morning that may be a bias crime.

The victims were walking home from a bar when they were attacked by three or four men, who jumped out of an SUV, at the intersection of Kossuth Place and Bushwick Avenue at around 3:30 a.m.

The alleged suspects did not say anything as they began attacking the two brothers.

But during the attack, the suspects used anti-Latino and other racial slurs as they beat the Ecuadorian brothers.

There'll probably be more information available in the next few hours.

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

Being openly gay, half Ecuadorian, a Bushwick resident, and survivor of a violent attack in this very area makes this especially heart breaking for me. Though my assault was not a hate crime because there were no anti-gay slurs involved, any violent crime against gays should not go unnoticed. It will be interesting to find out who the assailants were in a neighborhood which, though gentrified, is still predominantly Latino. My prayers go out to the victims and their families.

libhom said...

Quinn needs to put pressure on the NYPD to start taking heterosexist hate crimes seriously. If the victim isn't famous or doesn't die in the attack, they generally avoid doing anything.

Defensores de Democracia said...

This is incredible ! ... Two Latinos have been brutally killed in New York City in less than a month :

Jose Sucuzhanay and Marcelo Lucero in Long Island, New York City.

Add these to the brutal beating and kicking that took the life of Luis Ramirez in Shenandoah Pennsylvania last July.

These Brutal Murders are repugnant. The special Cruelty, Sadism and Inhumanity. The victims were all hard working, peaceful, honest and nice people.

I would consider all these attackers as perfect Terrorists and Cowards.

I have a blog to denounce Racial Murders and Racial Hatred. And to profile the good things of the Victims and their Poor families :

Raciality.com

Vicente Duque