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NJ Teens Beat Salvadoran Immigrant To Death

Posted July 24, 2010 by Patrick Young, Esq.
Categories: Hate Watch

At least a dozen young men were present when two Summit teenagers beat a man so badly he died three days later, an eyewitness to the attack said today.

Alex Ruiz, 19, said he was in the Summit Promenade last Saturday night with a group of buddies when two people in the group attacked Abelino Mazariego, 47, a Salvadoran father of four who had been in this country for 13 years.

A third teenager recorded the attack on his phone, the video later making the rounds among Summit’s teens, authorities have said.

Mazariego “was knocked out instantly,” said Ruiz, who said he watched as the two teenagers who have already been arrested in the killing pulled Mazariego’s shirt over his face and punched him in the head.

“We never thought the guy would die.”

Neither Ruiz nor the person who recorded the incident has been charged in the attack.

Summit police and the Union County Prosecutor’s Office refused to discuss the case today or comment on Ruiz’s claims, but a video of the attack — obtained tonight by the local ABC news affiliate — appears to support his version of the events.

Ruiz said Mazariego, a dishwasher at a local restaurant, was sitting on the bench around 9:30 p.m. Saturday when the group came into the secluded courtyard just off Summit’s popular downtown. Mazariego had his shirt off.

One of the teenagers, whom Ruiz said was the17-year-old already charged with manslaughter, sat down next to Mazariego on the bench. Another stood behind Mazariego, grabbed what appears in the video to be his T-shirt and pulled it over his face.

Then the 17-year-old on the bench punched Mazariego in the face and head. Ruiz did not identify the second person involved in the assault, but the only other person charged in the crime is Khayri Williams-Clark, 18, also of Summit. He, too has been charged with manslaughter.

Williams-Clark is to be arraigned today in Superior Court in Elizabeth. He is being held at the Union County Jail in lieu of $100,000 bail.

Ruiz gave no reason for the attack, which was the second in less then month by teenagers against older, foreign-born men. On June 25, Divyendu Sinha of Old Bridge, a scientist and former professor, was beaten in his front yard while his wife and children watched helplessly. He, like Mazeriego, died a few days later of head wounds.

In Summit today, a small memorial sprung up on the bench where Mazariego was attacked. Several flowers were placed on the bench, along with the photograph of him.

“I want the people to pay for what they did to my father,” said Mazariego’s son, Avelino, 26. “My family is suffering. I miss my father.”