Marcelo Lucero's killing in Patchogue subject of D.C. human rights commission hearing

Joselo Lucero sat before a high-level human rights commission in Washington, D.C., on Thursday and recounted how his brother was killed nearly 18 years ago in a notorious hate crime in Patchogue that still reverberates.

"It was shocking for me," Lucero told the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights. "My brother was killed because he looks like me. ... He was killed because he was Hispanic."

The 90-minute bilingual hearing was an opportunity to spotlight a case that has languished before the commission for years. But it also served as a chance for Lucero and other human rights activists to proclaim that the conditions that led to Marcelo Lucero’s death are on the rise again nationwide amid the federal government’s mass deportation campaign.

"Latino residents in Suffolk County deserved better from their local officials. And today, immigrants across the nation deserve better from their government," Kerry Kennedy, president of the Robert & Ethel Kennedy Human Rights Center in Washington, D.C., told the commission. She is the daughter of the late Sen. Robert F. Kennedy, a Democrat of New York.

The quasi-judicial commission typically investigates human rights abuses in Latin America, including massacres, "disappearances" of abducted activists and press freedom conflicts. The United States and other countries do not consider the commission’s findings and recommendations as binding, though its conclusions can exert political pressure on governments.

A "watch party" of about 35 people gathered at Lutheran Church of Our Savior in Patchogue to observe a livestream of the hearing and to pledge their support for immigrants.

"I don’t think that we should ever forget what happened to Marcelo Lucero," said Susan Steinmann, 81, a retired teacher from Mastic Beach. "I was taught that America was a country that welcomes everybody, and that’s not what is happening today."

Organizers hung a large photograph of Lucero, an Ecuadorian immigrant, on one wall of the church, while handmade signs said "Hate has no home here" and "Remember and Honor Marcelo Lucero."

Lucero, 37, was killed in November 2008 after a group of teenagers surrounded him, and one stabbed him. The teenagers later admitted to police that their pastime was hunting down and beating up Latinos.

"Marcelo’s death was by no means an isolated incident," Kennedy told the commission. "It was inspired by anti-immigrant and anti-Latino propaganda."

She recounted a string of comments made by public officials up to and after Lucero’s death, including one who called the killing a "one-day story." One county legislator said publicly he would "load [his] gun and start shooting" if Latino day laborers gathered in his neighborhood, while another said, "We’ll be up in arms; we’ll be out with baseball bats."

Kennedy and other advocates who spoke said a similar climate of hate is growing nationwide.

The federal government is "unleashing ICE agents to terrorize our communities," Lourdes Rosado, president of the Manhattan-based LatinoJustice PRLDEF, told the commission.

"The current federal administration’s inflammatory, anti-immigrant and anti-Latino agenda and statements only fuel more violence against our communities," Rosado said. "It’s time for the state to step up, be accountable and to put an end to anti-Latino and anti-immigrant violence."

President Donald Trump has said his mass deportation campaign is targeting "the worst of the worst" — dangerous and violent immigrants who are in the country illegally.

Newsday has reported that less than 5% of the thousands of immigrants held in Nassau jail through County Executive Bruce Blakeman’s partnership with U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement were convicted of violent crimes.

Asked for comment about the hearing, a spokesperson for the White House, Lauren Bis, said in a statement: "The Democrats are the ones who repeatedly vilify and demonize our ICE law enforcement officers. They have compared law enforcement to the gestapo, slave patrols, and the Secret Police."

"The violence and dehumanization of these men and women who are simply enforcing the law must stop," Bis said.

Government lawyers at the hearing said the system in the United States worked since seven teenagers accused in the Lucero case were prosecuted and went to prison, including one serving a 25-year sentence for stabbing Lucero. They asked the commission to dismiss the Lucero case.

Lucero told the commission that he is still shaken by the attack on his brother. He recalled calling their mother in Ecuador to inform her.

"You don’t know what it is like to call your mother and say, ‘Your son was killed last night because he was Hispanic,’ " he said.

"I’m a citizen of this country," he added, "but I don’t feel safe, in 2008 and now in 2026."