On Monday, a jury in Suffolk County found Jeffrey Conroy guilty of first-degree manslaughter as a hate crime. In November 2008, Conroy stabbed and killed Ecuadorian immigrant Marcelo Lucero while he and his friends were out “beaner hopping”—slang the group used for hunting down and attacking Latinos—in the Village of Patchogue.
In response to the Lucero killing, the Southern Poverty Law Center, an organization that tracks hate groups across the country, sent a researcher to Suffolk County to document past attacks against Latinos. The researcher also studied the political rhetoric and policies that stoked the flames of anti-immigrant hatred from Farmingville to Patchogue.
The September 2009 report, “Climate of Fear: Latino Immigrants in Suffolk County, N.Y.,” serves as a chilling chronicle of the violence against immigrants that was all too common in Suffolk County over the past decade.
To read the report, click here.
Tags : climate of fear, marcelo lucero, southern poverty law center, splc, steve levy, suffolk