It must be Tuesday, Middlespace Cadets, because I'm answering your questions
Q: Dear Ty,This is kinda old news but plastered all over NY1 with the second arrest, and combined with the fact it happened not far from my apt it's had me thinking...
Although the evidence points that way, how can you really tell that it was a hate crime? The slurs point that way, but is it absolutely certain, considering the extra time they'll get?
How many times are people just in the wrong place at the wrong time (Brooklyn backstreets, 3 am) when a pack of rowdy guys are looking for a target to relinquish their misery?
Any time a group of people are fighting with a different group of people, the slurs are always flying. I hear it a lot when the high schoolers are going at it outside, tons of old school New Yorkers have no fear in openly using them, and I've received my own fair share in attempts to bait me into fighting over the years.
On top of that, isn't 'faggot' the go-to word when kicking somebody's ass or fighting? It just doesn't seem as cut and dry to me as the Crown Heights affair, or the Hasidm beating the Pakistanis, KKK, Matthew Shepherd, beheadings, etc...
Granted, that section of town is marginally rougher than mine, but even so, the amount of super out, Perez Hilton-esque hipsters that have taken over have spread into much worse places, and they really do strut around like they own the place, with no worry or fear, even at 4 am and beyond. One of the most insane things I've seen in recent years was a time when a super drunk fairy queen knocked into a heavy-attitude, super tough black woman at the bodega and said 'get out of my way, bitch!'
Of course things got ugly and ended with the gay guy practically handing over all his belongings, but that's the type of audacity I see. It's much different than when I moved here and you had to really keep to yourself and try to blend in.
So, why have we seen no attacks on them?
It simply doesn't add up. The only explanation I have with that is that perhaps there is a greater fear of repercussion in attacking a white homo than an immigrant?
Lastly, the real question, what type of backroom interrogation do you think these guys will get, compared to normal, since they are turning this into such a big deal? It somewhat frightens me, since these guys are clearly being made an example of.
Clearly I hope that if it was the case that they have unspeakable things done to them, it's just been rubbing me the wrong way all day.
Sincerely,
Blingy Jeany
Ty: Good question and an even better observation, Blingy.
"So I killed someone -- that makes me a bad guy?"OK, here's the short version of this story for you losers who do not live in the fine city of New York [clicky]:
- Keith Phoenix
Jose Sucuzhanay and his brother, Romel, were walking home from somewhere in Brooklyn when Keith Phoenix and his friend, Hakim Scott rolled up and allegedly shouted "anti-gay and anti-Hispanic slurs" then got out of their SUV and beat the shit out of the brothers. Jose was killed. Scott and Phoenix drove away. The story became a big deal because 19 minutes later they were captured on toll booth video laughin' and cheesin' and shit. When the cops caught up with Phoenix he said, "So I killed someone...blah-blah-blah." That makes it a media sensation.
So how exactly do you really tell if an ordinary homicide is a bonafide hate crime, Blingy? Because the cops and the courts and the laws say that if, while you're killing someone, you open your trap and say something about a characteristic that pertains to the victim's race or ethnicity or sex or sexual preference or country of origin or color of their shoes or anything other that why you're really killing them -- unless you're killing someone of the SAME race, ethnicity, sex, sexual preference, country of origin, or color of their shoes, that's not hate-related -- their gonna go ahead and call your ordinary murder a fucking hate crime. Goddamn the loopholes.
Whew!
Did Phoenix and Scott really hate the Sucuzhanay brothers? Probably not. I mean hate is such a strong emotion. But if you can't control yourself while you're killing someone and you accidentally utter "homo" between blows and brain mass splatters, you're gonna get tagged with extra time in the joint under this so-called "hate crime" scam. The problem with the cops and the prosecutor and the courts is they're always finding ways to add time to beef. It's like they want to put all the murderers away forever. Always keeping the brothers down, right? Racialist fascists!
Now for your real question, the matter of interrogation. Unfortunately in this case, my guess is that all back room investigative activities have not only been completely above board and by the book, I'm guessing that the alleged scumbags were treated like the fucking Queen and King of England else their shitty public defender dare accuse the Legal System of bias or flawed technique and get one minute knocked off of their sentence (see OJ liveblog [clicky]). There's no question that they're gonna be locked up forever but the example here will be some crazy sentence like "900 years to life" or something.
As much as the entire NYPD detective force wanted to smack these dirty killas in their fucking black faces, they had to hold off. Phoenix and Scott will get theirs on the back end as genpop lifers in Auburn or Sullivan (pun not intended).
But, and here's the real hate crime, if one or both of the brothers Sucuzhanay happened to actually be a know homosexual, then the degree to which the detectives wanted to administer baton shampoo justice probably went down five-fold. There are historic biases in the city of New York. Had the victim been a pretty, young, white woman? Again, different story.
Oh, and this from the article, "Phoenix is unemployed and spent a lot of his time playing video games, the law enforcement official said." Classic.
Just a guess since I ain't no lawyer,
-ty
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