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Some Personal Reflections on Today’s Verdict

Posted April 19, 2010 by Patrick Young, Esq.
Categories: Hate Watch

In November, 2008, I went to the scene of the killing of Marcelo Lucero soon after his assailants were arrested. Trails of blood were still visible on the ground. The trails started where Lucero began to fight back against his seven young attackers. They ended where he died.

Lucero, dying, covered a lot of ground to try to get to help.

Today, I was back at the spot where he was killed, an hour after his killer was convicted. Marcelo’s brother, Joselo, was standing before the alleyway where Marcelo collapsed and bled out the last drops of his life.

Marcelo Lucero’s mother was next to Joselo. She never saw her son alive here in the United States. She even had trouble getting a visa to the U.S. last month to watch his killer tried.

The only point of delaying her visa was to protect some U.S. interest. What interest was protected that outweighed her need to be there to confront her son’s killer?

Joselo and his mother have devoted a lot of their time to forgiving Marcelo’s tormentors.

Have Suffolk’s politicians forgiven the Luceros, and their neighbors, and their neighbors’ “anchor baby” children for being Latino?

The jury that heard the case of the People of the State of New York v. Jeffrey Conroy shows that the belief by many Suffolk elected officials that their constituents are bigoted rubes who can easily be whipped up to an anti-immigrant rage is just plain wrong. Only a small, noisy minority are susceptible to the sort of race-baiting Suffolk pols regularly resorted to before the harassment turned deadly on November 8, 2008.

But until today, too many of the good people of Suffolk stayed silent in the face of deadly bigotry.

As Marcelo Lucero was the immigrant who said “Enough!”, and fought back against the lynch mob, the Conroy jury also cried “Enough!”

We must all follow their examples.

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

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