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Brutal Bias Attack
Cops: Pair lured day laborers to factory with idea to kill
by BART JONES AND MICHAEL LUO
Staff Writers
In what police yesterday labeled a bias attack, two Mexican day laborers
from Farmingville were brutally beaten by two white men who had lured them
with a promise of work to an abandoned warehouse in a desolate industrial
park.
The workers, both undocumented immigrants, were picked up Sunday morning and
taken to the building in Shirley, said Det. Sgt. Robert Reecks, commanding
officer of the Bias Crimes Bureau of the Suffolk County Police Department.
Day laborers stand on street corners in the morning waiting for contractors
to drive by and offer them short-term work in landscaping, roofing and other
jobs.
On the ride over to the graffiti-ridden warehouse just south of the Long
Island Expressway service road and west of William Floyd Parkway, one man
asked the workers -- aged 19 and 28 -- whether they were Mexican, and the
attack began, Reecks said.
Police gave this account of what happened: At the warehouse, the men had the
workers unload tools from the back of a late 1980s or early 1990s Ford
Taurus station wagon. The two men then directed the laborers to a basement
room in the back of the building, completely hidden from view on the street.
They ordered them to begin moving dirt from one end of the basement to the
other.
As the laborers started to dig, they were attacked from behind. One of the
men slammed the older worker in the head with a shovel, knocking him to the
ground and causing him to black out briefly.
The man awoke to the cries of his friend. With the older worker lying on the
ground, the two men had turned on the other worker. This time, one of them
was armed with a knife.
The 19-year-old suffered a puncture wound to his neck and slashes to his wri
sts, as he put up his arms to defend himself, police said.
"At that point, they were just trying to survive,” Reecks said, adding that
the two suspects, if caught, would face attempted-murder charges.
The day laborers were able to break away and escape to the Long Island
Expressway, where they flagged down a motorist who called 911.
Even then, however, language initially stymied them. The call first came
across as a possible motor vehicle accident, with two battered men asking
for help, police said. Only after a translator arrived were police able to
piece together that two men had tried to kill them.
Police said they had little doubt that the men had carefully planned to
murder their victims.
"It was clear that they were going to leave them there,” said Chief of
Department Philip Robilotto. "It was clear they were looking to do this.”
If the men had not been able to escape, the warehouse and the basement where
they were attacked were so isolated their bodies would not have been
discovered for some time, police said.
The 19-year-old was operated on yesterday at Brookhaven Memorial Hospital in
Patchogue. He was listed in stable condition last night. The other worker
was treated and released from the hospital Sunday. He spent yesterday at the
rundown house he shares with a dozen other day workers, wearing a neck brace
and trying to fathom why he was beaten.
"I guess that's the price you have to pay for the American Dream,” he said
in Spanish. He said he did not want to make extensive comments to the media
because he was concerned that more publicity could bring reprisals. Police
requested that the identity of the two men not be released.
Authorities have made no arrests, but they described the assailants as two
white men in their late 20s.
Police said they had little doubt the attack was a hate crime targeting the
Mexican immigrant community in Farmingville, a hamlet of 15,000 people that
over the past few years has been buffeted by controversy over the workers'
presence. In the last year, there has been a string of attacks against the
workers, including several beatings and a drive-by shooting at one of the
houses where some of them live.
Anti-immigrant groups say day laborers are in the country illegally and are
the cause of rising crime rates, plummeting property values and a declining
quality of life. Immigrant-rights groups say the workers are here merely to
earn a living and support their families back home, and that they are
generally law-abiding, hard-working people.
Immigrant-rights advocates and Catholic Church leaders yesterday condemned
the attack and criticized Suffolk Legis. Joseph Caracappa (R-Selden) and the
Sachem Quality of Life civic group for allegedly creating a climate that led
to the attack.
The anti-immigrant forces are "trying to terrorize” the workers "and get
them to leave,” said the Rev. Bill Brisotti of Our Lady of the Miraculous
Medal Church in Wyandanch. Brisotti often celebrates Mass in Spanish for the
workers in Farmingville.
"I think this should be a wake-up call to the people who are verbally
attacking” the immigrants, he said. "It's getting very, very serious and
could result in the loss of life.”
Caracappa did not return calls for comment and no one in his office would
comment yesterday. Ray Wysolmierski, a leader of the Sachem group, said the
organization deplored the attack. "We certainly don't tolerate that type of
thing,” he said. The attack "has nothing to do with us.”
Caracappa last month proposed authorizing the legislature to sue to
Immigration and Naturalization Service for allegedly failing to enforce
immigration laws. Caracappa charged that day laborers were responsible for a
"spate” of crime in Farmingville -- an allegation police said statistics did
not back up. The legislature defeated the measure after a stormy public
hearing.
Legis. Brian Foley (D-Patchogue), the sole Democrat who voted for the bill
and whose district includes part of Farmingville, said yesterday "inflamed
rhetoric” has inhibited constructive dialogue about the issue and "poisoned
the atmosphere.” However, he said the bill itself was not to blame, rather
extremists at the fringes.
"It is a terrible, terrible crime against those men,” said Foley, who since
the measure was defeated has been working to create an organization that
would be "an antidote to the voices of intolerance.”
As usual, day laborers arrived at Farmingville street corners yesterday
morning looking for work. Many were unaware of Sunday night's beating, and
expressed shock and dismay at the news.
"I'm a little scared, but I need to work,” said Mauricio, an immigrant from
El Salvador who has searched for work on Farmingville's street corners for
two years.
Staff writers Andrew Metz, Arturo A. Marroquin, J. Jioni Palmer and Tom
Demoretcky contributed to this story.