Video: Jose O. Sucuzhanay Is Third Latino Murdered/Fourth Latino Hate Crime Victim Since July

Thirty one year-old Jose O. Sucuzhanay, an Ecuadorian-born realtor living in the Bushwick neighborhood of Brooklyn, New York died Friday night after he was brutally beaten with a bottle and a baseball bat in the wee hours of the morning on Sunday, December 7. The attackers shouted gay and Hispanic slurs. This marks the third murder and fourth hate crime in the northeastern United States against Latinos since July of this year. In July, Luis Ramirez, an illegal Mexican immigrant living in Shenandoah, Pennsylvania was beaten to death by a group of four teenagers, members of the local high school football team. In August, Joseph “Papa Joe” Papapietro of the Port Richmond neighborhood of Staten Island, New York repeatedly rammed his pickup truck into three storefronts owned by Mexican merchants while shouting racist slurs causing tens of thousands of dollars of damage. And last month, seven Patchogue-Medford High School students hunted and stabbed Marcelo Lucero to death in Patchogue, Long Island after drinking some beer and deliberately setting out to attack “a Mexican.” (Lucero was Ecuadorian.)

The latest attack happened a week ago Sunday while Sucuzhanay and his brother Romel were walking home from a bar, arm in arm, when three men jumped out of a maroon or red sport utility vehicle and attacked them. It’s now been a week and there are still no leads on the attackers with only one being described as “six feet tall and thin wearing a black leather jacket, boots, dark jeans and a dark baseball cap during the attack.” A reward of $22,000 is being offered for information.

During a time when the country’s first black president is inspiring hope for a more tolerant future, the FBI reports that hate crimes against hispanics grew by 40% from 2003 to 2007. Over the same period of time, the growth of overall hate crime has remained steady. An article in Newsday offers some statistics many Latinos already know too well.

“We do know from reports and from hate-group activity that there’s a new focus on the Latino and immigrant populations,” said Randy Blazak, director of the Hate Crimes Research Network at Portland State University Oregon.

Since 2004, Blazak said, Ku Klux Klan rhetoric has take an “incredible shift from anti-black diatribes” toward hatred directed at Latinos.

The below video from a local news station of Shenandoah, Pennsylvania citizens supporting the young men accused of killing Luis Ramirez seem to illustrate this point. Watch for a woman named Debbie Rabbold at the end who asks, “Well, if he hadn’t been here, would he have died?” Genius pool, people, really.

And here’s footage of the indictment in the Marcelo Lucero case on Long Island describing the premeditated hunting of Mexicans.

Original Video- More videos at TinyPic

Mexican’s Death Bares a Town’s Ethnic Tension [NY Times]
FBI finds attacks against Latinos on rise [Newsday]
Hate Attack on Immigrant in Brooklyn [El Diario/La Prensa translated by New American Media]
Staten Island man charged with bashing storefronts [SILive]