Dec 10, 2008 6:57 pm US/Eastern
CBS 2 HD Asks: Are Latinos Being Targeted?
Recent Wave Of Hate Crimes Against Hispanics Has Forced Many People In NYC To Look Over Both Shoulders
NEW YORK (CBS) ―
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This is a sketch of one of the suspects involved in the brutal attack on an Ecuadorean immigrant on Dec. 7 in Brooklyn.
CBS
In the past two months, Latinos have been attacked in Patchogue -- where one man was killed -- and in Brooklyn -- where another is on life support.
Which raises the question: are Latinos being targeted?
CBS 2 HD went to the streets for answers.
Police have released a sketch of one of three men they're looking for in the attack that prompted Jose Oswaldo Sucuzhanay's family and friends to gather outside Elmhurst Hospital, where he has been maintained on life support since Sunday. The incident a month after a mob killed Marcelo Lucero in Patchogue.
"In Suffolk County, if you don't watch where the areas are that you're going, are they're whites, and they see that you're Latino? They're chasing you," said Marcus Morales of the Lower East Side.
"Absolutely. I think Latinos are being targeted," added Sandra Cruz of the Lower East Side.
But while concern is growing in Latino neighborhoods like Jackson Heights in Queens, when you look closer, the anti-Latino wave is not so "black and white." There is a strong anti-immigrant component to what's happening in Suffolk County. And when Jose Sucuzhanay and his brother Romel were attacked in Brooklyn, it was because the brothers were walking so close to each other, the attackers went after them because they were gay. It's something Marcus Morales knows a bit about as a 53-year-old gay Puerto Rican.
"I'm still here. There's a reason why: 'cause I knew how to walk, and there were just certain areas that you couldn't be in," Morales said. "I'm sad to see that for some reason, we're backtracking. We're going back in time."
New York is such a diverse city, though, that most Latinos told CBS 2 HD they feel -- generally – pretty safe.
That doesn't mean, though, that a lot of people are not concerned.
The NYPD's hate crimes division says there were two bias attacks against Latinos this year, compared with three last year. FBI statistics show hate crimes against Latinos nationwide increased more than 40 percent.
(© MMIX, CBS Broadcasting Inc. All Rights Reserved.)
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