Nov 10, 2008 7:35 am US/Eastern
Staten Island Teen Battered In Obama Bias Attack
Four Men Beat 17-Year-Old With Bat Amid Cries Of 'Obama'
NEW YORK (CBS) ―
A Staten Island teen who is black was viciously assaulted Tuesday night in what police believe was a bias attack sparked by Barack Obama's presidential victory.
Seventeen-year-old Ali Kamara walks with a limp and has staples in his head. They are the results of a beating that he says was committed by four young men the night President-elect Obama was declared the winner.
Kamara, a high school student who is Muslim and lives in the Stapleton Section of the borough, was attacked while walking home around 10 p.m. the night of the election. He says as he approached his street, a gold car with four white men drove up behind him, with the men yelling Obama's name.
"That was the first word that came out of their mouth, 'Obama,'" Kamara recalls.
It was dark and Kamara says the suspects wore hoods that covered their faces. He says it's unlikely they knew he was Muslim, but clearly saw he was black.
"I was on the floor, [they were] beating me with a bat. They started beating me, beating me, beating me. They got back in the car, chasing me," says Kamara, who suffered injuries to his legs, head, and back.
After getting away, despite his cell phone being damaged in the attack, he was able to call his mother.
"[He said] Mama, four boys, white boys jumped me, beat me with baseball bat. I'm bleeding, I'm dying, I'm dying," says Janeba Ladepo, Kamara's mother.
One of the cuts he suffered to his head required two staples.
"I feel very angry, very angry," says Kamara.
Police questioned neighbors to see if they could help identify the car or the assailants. Detectives from the hate crimes task force are investigating.
No arrests have been made.
The Washington-based Council on American-Islamic Relations has called on the FBI to launch a hate crime investigation into the assault.
Members of Staten Island's African-American Political Association asked Governor Paterson to appoint a special prosecutor to look into the case, because they say there have been a number of bias incidents in the area.
CBS 2's John Slattery and Christine Sloan contributed to this story.
(© MMIX, CBS Broadcasting Inc. All Rights Reserved.)
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