Alleged LI hate crime victim wonders what became of police probe

For nearly 10 months, Javier Monroy Gonzalez wondered why he didn't hear from Suffolk police detectives investigating a beating that left him dazed and bleeding in a supermarket parking lot.

"I thought, if any crime is a hate crime, this truly is," he said yesterday as he rubbed the back of his head and recounted the strange adventure he's had since the March 17 attack.

On that morning, Monroy said, he wondered whether he'd live to see his five children in Mexico again. That was followed by months of pain and brewing anger that his attackers were still at large.

This week, he learned that Anthony Hartford, 17, of Medford, has been charged with second-degree assault and third-degree robbery in the attack on him. Hartford pleaded not guilty after indictments were unsealed in Riverhead against him and other teenagers for nine crimes against Hispanics.

"I just can't understand why someone would smash me so hard that I ended up in the hospital for four days," Monroy said. "Is it because I look Latino and have a Mexican accent?"

Prosecutors have asked the same question. Monroy said he is frustrated by Suffolk police who, he said, interviewed him in the hospital but didn't seem to take his injuries seriously.

In an interview Tuesday night, Suffolk Police Commissioner Richard Dormer said his department is looking back to find out if police missed common threads in attacks against Hispanics for more than a year. "We're reviewing all the records," he said, denying that police overlooked bias crimes.

Dormer said some investigations "were hampered initially because victims had no idea who had committed the crimes against them." After Marcelo Lucero was killed in November and seven suspects were arrested, other victims recognized their attackers, Dormer said.

Monroy, 53, conceded that he came to the United States illegally from Mexico three years ago. He was working in a factory in his native country and trying to pay school expenses for five children. A brother-in-law told Monroy that life was better on Long Island.

Monroy said he wired home almost everything he made to his wife and children every week. The day he was assaulted, he was walking to work from his house in Selden just after 6 a.m., when a car stopped in front of him and two young men got out and approached him. The next thing he knew, he said he was on the ground, dripping blood.

At the time, Suffolk police told Newsday that although the suspects were white and Monroy was Latino, they didn't consider the attack a hate crime. Monroy said that puzzled him. When he read that teenagers were accused of beating Hispanic immigrant Lucero before he was stabbed to death in Patchogue on Nov. 8, Monroy resolved to make another complaint to police.

Soon after he did, on Jan. 20, he said, he was summoned before a grand jury and identified photos of two men as his attackers. One was Hartford.

Hartford's attorney, Laurence Silverman of Huntington, could not be reached for comment yesterday.

"I was beaten so badly that I couldn't even walk, and I lost my job," Monroy said. "I am waiting for the criminals who did this to compensate me for my injuries and lost income. That's only fair."

Staff writer Sumathi Reddy contributed to this story.