!*Black Man Beaten by White Racist Teenagers in NY
Marpessa Kupendua
)Date: Tue, 23 Sep 1997 16:37:33 -0500
)From: Michael Novick <mnovi...@pop.igc.apc.org>
)Subject: racial beating in NY
September 23, 1997
Beating in Brooklyn Shatters Fragile Neighborhood Truce
By JAMES BARRON
The arrests of three white teen-agers in the beating of a black
man in Brooklyn over the weekend rekindled memories of a time when the
brownstones of the largely white Carroll Gardens were considered off-limits
to blacks from a housing project across the street, some residents said
yesterday.
"There's not that much antagonizing of us" nowadays, said Nina Dula, a
black woman who lives in the Red Hook Houses, the project that is home to
the victim of the weekend beating, Kevin Teague, 27.
But Dula, like many blacks in the Red Hook Houses, said that even recently,
there had been isolated incidents of whites' calling blacks names while on
the edge of Carroll Gardens. She also remembered other, more serious
incidents, like a night in the 1970's when she and other parishioners were
trapped in the sanctuary of a largely black church in the area while a
crowd of whites threw bottles at the building.
Teague's cousin, Ronnell Williams, 34, said she believed that Teague had
gone to the hospital yesterday after having trouble with an eye that was
injured in the assault. He had 13 stitches on his head and face after the
attack, officials said.
A grand jury in Brooklyn has been hearing testimony in the case, and the
Brooklyn District Attorney, Charles J. Hynes, has scheduled a news
conference this morning.
The police say they believe that the three white teen-agers charged with
beating Teague -- Anthony Mascuzzio, 19; Alfonso Russo, 17, and his cousin
Andrew Russo, 18 -- were largely responsible for the Saturday morning
assault. All three are free on $100,000 bail.
But detectives are looking for more white teen-agers who may have witnessed
the attack, said a police investigator who spoke on the condition of
anonymity.
"They want to see if anyone else was involved, see if there were more
witnesses to the attack and find some witnesses to the original incident at
the McDonald's," the investigator said. That is the incident that
detectives say they believe sent the white teen-agers off on a rampage: a
dispute at a McDonald's fast-food restaurant just off Hamilton Avenue.
Mascuzzio's mother, Cecilia, told reporters on Saturday that nine black men
tried to steal her son's Rolex watch at the McDonald's. She used a racial
epithet to describe the assailants. Investigators say they believe that the
three arrested suspects were seeking revenge for the incident at the
McDonald's.
Teague, who works for United Parcel Service, had just emerged from the
subway station at Smith and Ninth Streets with a friend, Steven Bruce, an
electrician, about 2:30 A.M. Saturday. They were making a call on a pay
phone when a woman warned of an approaching mob, and they began running,
officials said.
Bruce escaped. Teague was struck by a car as he crossed Hamilton Avenue,
the dividing line between Carroll Gardens and Red Hook. Prosecutors and
detectives say he was also punched, kicked and beaten with a baseball bat
and a steering wheel lock. The assault stopped only when a livery cab
pulled up and, separately, a team of undercover narcotics officers who had
been working nearby arrived.
The cabdriver and Bruce put Teague into the taxi and left for Long Island
College Hospital. The undercover officers chased the attackers to the
entrance of the Brooklyn-Battery Tunnel, where they took the teen-agers
into custody.
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