Nov 13, 2008 6:18 am US/Eastern
Uncle Of Accused Patchogue Gang Member Fires Back
Jerry Dumas Begs Public To Get All The Facts Before Condemning The Teens Arrested In Killing Of Immigrant
Reporting
Lou Young
PATCHOGUE, N.Y. (CBS) ―
-
-
An uncle of one of the teens accused in the brutal killing of an Ecuadorian immigrant in Patchogue wants the public to hear all the facts before they judge his nephew.
CBS
-
-
Marcelo Lucero, 37, was stabbed to death in what police believe to be a "brutal murder motivated by racial bias."
CBS
Jerry Dumas was shocked beyond belief when his sister called this past weekend to tell him his nephew, Jose Pacheco, was in jail.
"I asked her what it was about," he told CBS 2 HD at his home Wednesday night. "She said all she knew was that someone died and it was bad."
Then it hit the news and he remembers himself thinking …
"No. It's impossible. It cannot be," Dumas said.
The 48-year-old truck driver saw his mild-mannered nephew, the kid he describes as a "video game nerd," being paraded in handcuffs as part of a gang of seven teenagers arrested for the fatal bias attack on Ecuadoran immigrant Marcelo Lucero in East Patchogue on Long Island.
"A bias attack," he remembers asking himself? Jose is bi-racial. His mother, Jerry's sister, is African American.
"For him to go along with something like this would mean that he hated himself, and he doesn't," Dumas said. "He's proud of being Puerto Rican; He's proud of being African-American. It's the way he's been all his life."
Jose's story, relayed through his mother and then to his uncle, is that there was no gang that night. He claims he and friend, Chris Overton, another defendant in the case, were on foot trying to make their way to the North Patchogue home Jose shares with his mother, Sherri. He said the five other defendants stopped to give them a ride. When they pulled over near the Patchogue train station and trouble began with two men walking on the street he said most of the teens in the vehicle decided to leave on their own.
"When the incident began to unfold," Dumas said, "Jose says that him and four of the other youths walked away. They didn't physically participate. They didn't egg it on. They didn't encourage it."
The police said that Lucero and his friend were set upon and surrounded by the entire group and that Lucero's friend ran and the victim tried to keep the gang at bay by removing his belt and swinging it.
By the police account Lucero was kicked and punched and finally stabbed in the chest. Jeff Conroy, 17, is accused of stabbing Lucero in the chest, killing him. The other six are all charged with gang assault as a hate crime. Even if they walked away, though, it's apparent that none of the seven tried to help Lucero in his final moments.
"Listen," Dumas said, "you can fault kids for not helping but they're kids. I'll take solace in the fact that Jose says he didn't participate in it. He tried to walk away. He didn't encourage it and he wasn't going to participate if he HAD heard nonsense like that." He means the allegation that the group had been out to "beat up Mexicans."
Dumas said he doesn't rule out that Jose may have done something wrong, and he said his heart goes out to the family of the victim.
"A life was lost unnecessarily," Dumas said. "He came to America to make a better way to him and his. That's why my sister moved out to North Patchogue to make a better life for her and hers. I don't take that lightly. But let's separate the situation. These seven boys didn't all operate with the same mentality, the same intent, the same premeditation."
(© MMIX, CBS Broadcasting Inc. All Rights Reserved.)
World's Most Useless Facts
Click to enlarge
Click to enlarge
Stumble It!
Comments