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Friend of Jeff Conroy Says He First Heard of “Beaner Hopping” Seven Years Ago

Posted April 4, 2010 by Patrick Young, Esq.
Categories: Hate Watch

The New York Times reports that a Latino friend of Jeff Conroy, accused killer of Marcelo Lucero, says that he first heard students brag that they were attacking Latinos seven years ago. Will Garcia went to high school with Conroy and considered him a friend. The New York Times says:

Mr. Garcia and other former students at the high school said they had heard of students boasting of going “beaner-hopping” for years before November 2008. “I’ve heard that word since fifth grade,” said Mr. Garcia, who added that he never heard Mr. Conroy use it.

Garcia, who is an immigrant Ecuador, says that both he and his father have been spat on by Suffolk County residents and that a 14 year old member of his family was recently insulted by a white motorist. He said he did not consider Conroy a racist, even though the accused man has white power and Nazi tattoos.

The Suffolk DA may want to talk to Mr. Garcia to determine the identities of the students who bragged about “beaner hopping” to him. I have long believed that the seven teens accused in the Lucero attack were not the only students at Patchogue-Medford High School to be involved in this series of attacks. If “beaner-hopping” actually began seven years ago, when the accused were eleven and twelve years old, there are obviously a number of men in their mid-20s who participated in other attacks in 2003, the year a group of young men burned down a house with a Mexican family in it in nearby Farmingville and 2004, when Suffolk County government began targeting immigrants.

What Garcia’s statement points to is the need for a much wider probe by the Suffolk Police Department of attacks on immigrants by others in the area.

Tags : hate crimes, hate watch, jeffrey conroy, marcelo lucero

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