Letter: 'Ludicrous' tying Levy, hate crime
Marcelo Lucero, 37, shown on Nov. 10, 2008, was beaten and stabbed to death by seven teenagers in Patchogue. Credit: Handout
LatinoJustice PRLDEF president Juan Cartagena complains that the U.S. Justice Department "made no findings of fact about what went wrong within the police force" . There is a good reason for that: There were no facts to support this false claim.
Even Cartagena himself failed to mention a single case where evidence existed warranting an arrest, and no arrest was made.
Don't you think that after five years of investigation, all the histrionics and all the media sensationalism, that at least one advocate would have come up with at least one specific case?
The killing of Marcelo Lucero was heinous, and those responsible are behind bars. But it is ludicrous for Cartagena and the illegal immigration lobby to suggest that the killing was the result of county policy regarding illegal immigration or police allegedly dismissing Hispanic complaints.
Two weeks after Lucero's death, immigrant Jose Sucuzhanay was also fatally beaten by thugs because he was Hispanic. But this occurred in Brooklyn, and no one called for federal investigations or blamed the death on Mayor Michael Bloomberg or the New York City Police Department.
Similarly, no one is linking city policy to the hate-filled "knockout" attacks where Jews are sucker-punched by African-American males.
Cartagena suggests hate crimes came and left with my administration, despite the fact that infamous hate crimes such as the assault in a Shirley warehouse and the fire at a Farmingville home occurred before my tenure, and that many such crimes continued after I moved on.
Ultimately, Newsday's headline should have read, "Suffolk police exonerated."
Steve Levy, Bayport
Editor's note: The writer is a former Suffolk County executive.
