Prosecutors blast "beaner-jumping" teens in Marcelo Lucero trial

Opening statements were made this week in the trial against one of the teens accused of the 2008 hate crime murder of Ecuadorian immigrant Marcelo Lucero.

Prosecutors started proceedings yesterday by claiming that nineteen-year-old Jeffrey Conroy and six others roamed the streets of Patchogue on Long Island seeking random Latinos to assault. "They were looking for blood, specifically Mexican blood," said one of the prosecutors about the teens that were accused of assaulting Lucero as part of a made-up sport they called "beaner-jumping." Furthermore, prosecutors claimed that Conroy admitted to police that he stabbed Lucero and had kept the murder weapon as a “trophy” when he was arrested.

Four of the defendants have already pled guilty and are expected to testify against Conroy who has declared not guilty of charges including murder and manslaughter. Aside from defending his client’s alleged innocence, Conroy’s lawyer attacked Lucero’s character by pointing out his prior drug use. Conroy faces a maximum sentence of life in jail if convicted of second-degree murder.

The second day of Lucero’s trial coincides with Suffolk County Executive Steve Levy publicly declaring his candidacy for New York Governor. As the New York Times noted in an editorial, Levy’s policies on immigration (including his dismissive reaction to Lucero’s murder) could be a major liability:

It isn’t just that he sometimes repeats xenophobic lies, as when he told a library meeting a few years ago that a flood of illegal immigrants’ babies was swamping the Southampton Hospital maternity ward. It isn’t just that he has allied himself with groups at the far-right edge of the debate. It is that his strategy of trying to make life untenable for Long Islanders he presumes to be illegal is divisive and ineffective. His reaction to tragedies like the killing of the Ecuadorean immigrant Marcelo Lucero has been heartless and dismissive.

Image- CBS News (Jeffrey Conroy and six other teens have been accused of killing Marcelo Lucero in 2008).
Online Sources- New York Times, NY1, Huffington Post, New York Daily News, CNN, The Latin Americanist, NBC New York

New charges in Marcelo Lucero hate crime case

Prosecutors unveiled new charges against a seven teens suspected of the November 2008 murder of Ecuadorian immigrant Marcelo Lucero.

The new indictment presented yesterday said that the youths were part of a larger gang whose purpose was to harass and injure Latinos on Long Island. The defendants were part of "a violent and racially driven pastime," Suffolk District Attorney Thomas Spota said that included beating and robbing a Latino unconscious and threatening to kill another man with a lead pipe.

Despite Suffolk County executive Steve Levy’s initially flippant claims that Lucero’s murder would’ve been a "one-day story" elsewhere, the tragedy has brought widespread attention to increased tensions on Long Island. The hatred and disgust by some people against the area’s booming Latino population has apparently been met with a blind eye from authorities. Yesterday’s indictment further shows that incidents like Lucero’s death are unfortunately not rarities:

Jose Perez, a lawyer for LatinoJustice P.R.L.D.E.F., an advocacy group, said the new cases were “the tip of the iceberg” in a pattern of violence against Hispanics, and show that a more aggressive police response to earlier attacks could have prevented Mr. Lucero’s death.

After Mr. Lucero died, many other immigrants came forward to describe attacks. Some had never been reported; others were reported to police at the time, but no one was arrested, in part because language barriers made communication difficult, Mr. Spota said.

Image- ABC News
Online Sources- The Latin Americanist, newsday.com, IHT, New York Times, WNYC, ABC News