Nov 14, 2008 7:30 pm US/Eastern
Hispanic Man Walks CBS 2 HD Through Similar Attack
Hector Sierra Says He Was Punched And Beaten By Gang Of Young Men Not Long Before Immigrant Was Murdered
PATCHOGUE, N.Y. (CBS) ―
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Seven high school students from Patchogue and Medford are in serious trouble, accused of participating in a racial bias attack that left aq 37-year-old Ecuadorian immigrant dead.
CBS
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Marcello Lucero, 37, was stabbed to death in what police believe to be a "brutal murder motivated by racial bias."
CBS
Maybe less than an hour before an Ecuadorean immigrant was killed on Long Island by what appears to have been a racist mob another Latino immigrant was beaten, he believes by the same young men. He told CBS 2 HD on Friday that he is lucky to be alive.
"Well, I was really tripping 'cause they were kicking me," Hector Sierra said. "Trying to save my life ... I thought they was gonna rob me, but they never asked for money. [I thought they were going to] stab me, or shoot me, or something," Sierra said.
And then Sierra and CBS 2 HD went to where it happened.
"An SUV just passed me ... I felt somebody just staring at me...I didn't pay too much attention. They walk out of the car ... chasing me from that distance," Sierra said.
"Again when I get out to the middle of the street they started punching me ... on my neck."
Investigators now think the same group charged with killing 37-year-old Marcello Lucero last Saturday may have attacked Sierra on this block first, just minutes before the murder.
"After they punched me and kicked me I saw they were very young ... two kids ... very tall ... and then they ran to get in the truck again because they left it right in the middle of the street," Sierra said.
And investigators think that's when the group drove off and found the immigrant, whom, cops said, they killed.
Sierra has told his story to investigators. He said he doesn't understand: he's lived on Long Island for 30 years without this kind of problem.
(© MMIX, CBS Broadcasting Inc. All Rights Reserved.)
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