Seeing a Pattern of Hate in Attacks on Immigrants on Long Island - NYTimes.com

Seeing a Pattern of Hate in Attacks on Immigrants on Long Island - NYTimes.com: “ Marcelo Lucero, another Ecuadorean immigrant, was stabbed to death on Nov. 8 near Main Street. Prosecutors say seven 16- and 17-year-old boys, mostly from neighboring Medford, were attacking Mr. Lucero when one of them rushed at him with a knife. The attacks were such an established pastime that the youths, who have pleaded not guilty, had a casual and derogatory term for it, “beaner hopping.” One of the youths told the authorities, “I don’t go out doing this very often, maybe once a week.”

That was not news to Latinos in Patchogue, who say that regular harassment, muggings and assaults have had them living in fear — 11 men told The New York Times of 13 attacks, nine of them in the past two years.

But the Suffolk County police said it was news to them.

“We hadn’t noticed this,” Richard Dormer, the Suffolk County police commissioner, said in an interview last month when asked about the attacks by groups of young men. “And that’s a concern to us.””