RIPPED FROM THE HEADLINES:
On Dec. 7, 2008, two brothers from Ecuador, Jose and Romel Sucuzhanay, who had attended a church party and stopped at a bar afterward were attacked in Brooklyn. They may have been a bit tipsy as they walked home in the dead of night, arm-in-arm, leaning close to each other, a common gesture of men in Latino cultures, but one easily misinterpreted by the biased mind. One man approached Jose Sucuzhanay, 31, the owner of a real estate agency who had been in New York a decade, and broke a beer bottle over the back of his head. He went down hard. Romel Sucuzhanay, 38, who was visiting from Ecuador on a two-month visa, bounded over a parked car and ran as the man with the broken bottle came at him. A distance away, he looked back and saw a second assailant beating his prone brother with an aluminum baseball bat, striking him repeatedly on the head and body. The man with the broken bottle turned back and joined the beating and kicking. Jose, who sustained injuries from a baseball bat, was brought to a hospital in critical condition and eventually succumbed to his wounds. Anti-gay and anti-Latino slurs were heard by witnesses, the police said. Keith Phoenix. 30, was convicted of murder as a hate crime. Phoenix was sentenced to life in prison on Aug. 5, 2010. His cohort, Hakim Scott, was convicted the month before of manslaughter.