The Sport of Beaner-Hopping

Hate crimes against Latinos and immigrants have spiked in the last few years.  ImmigrationProf reported long ago on the horrible hate killing of  Ecuadorean immigrant Marcelo Lucero, on Long Island in New York.  Aa trial has begun in the criminal prosecution of one of those accused of his killing.  Manny Fernandez of the NY Times reports on how the “prosecutor laid out in chilling detail the `sport’ that she said the defendant and his friends had made out of attacking Hispanic men. `On Nov. 8, 2008, the hunt was on,’ Megan O’Donnell, the prosecutor, told 12 jurors and 4 alternates . . . .   The defendant, Jeffrey Conroy, 19, was one of seven Patchogue-Medford High School students who the police and prosecutors said attacked an Ecuadorean immigrant, Marcelo Lucero, in November 2008. . . . Ms. O’Donnell described how the teenagers, including Mr. Conroy, roamed the village of Patchogue that Saturday evening for one purpose: to find a Hispanic person to assault. . . . .  They were . . .`looking for blood — specifically, Mexican blood.’ They called the sport Mexican-hopping or beaner-hopping, she said.”

KJ