Quantcast

Brooklyn Hate Crime Victim Dies

Brooklyn real estate agency owner Jose Sucuzhany, who was brutally beaten last week, died yesterday. Sucuzhanay had been declared brain dead last week but, the NY Times reports, his "kept him on life support in anticipation of his mother’s arrival, but on Friday, his heart stopped."

The police are looking for suspects in the beating, which they consider a hate crime. Sucuzhanay and his brother had been walking near Kossuth Place and Bushwick Avenue—arm in arm because they were drunk—when a SUV pulled up. The vehicle's passengers yelled anti-gay and anti-Hispanic epithets at them. According to the Daily News, "The attackers jumped out of the car and smashed a beer bottle over Jose Sucuzhanay’s head, hit him in the head with an aluminum baseball bat and kicked him... [His brother] was able to get away; the attackers drove off after he returned and said he had called police."

Another brother, Diego Sucuzhanay, said, "I am at a loss beyond words over the passing of my brother. We just need time to cope." His family said Jose Sucuzhanay, who had two children who live still in Ecuador with grandparents, arrived in the U.S. ten years ago; the Times reports, "He was a waiter for seven years before he got a real estate license three years ago and started his own agency, Open Realty International, in Bushwick."

There is a vigil for Sucuzhanay planned for 2 p.m. today (details); participants will walk from Myrtle Avenue Grove Street to Bushwick Avenue and Kossuth Place. According to Joe. My. God, "NYC Council Speaker Christine Quinn, and representatives from the Human Rights Campaign, the NYC Anti-Violence Project, the NAACP, the NYCLU, the NYC Immigration Coalition and other LGBT and Latino groups will attend."

Contact the author of this article or email tips@gothamist.com with further questions, comments or tips.

Comments [rss]

  • NannyState

    I'll never understand shit like this. Devastating.

  • r1b2

    Filthy animals, too ignorant to respond to something with anything other than violence.

  • Amanda Harletsch

    the assholes were RACIST americans beating down an in deed "minding his own business" Equatorian immigrant...now, maybe you don't see the the relation between these racist attacker's understanding (lack of) their own civil role and the need of such awareness, but it is all at the center of globalization. Self entitlement is at the core of rights and abuse of rights, and that is directly linked with civility and society as we know it. SO yeah dynamic in America have been revolving mostly around black and white cultural constructs, but it is all changing.

  • Jamie McDonald

    Sorry to break it to you, but violence against those that are unlike you predates globalization by quite a stretch. Also:



    "Self entitlement is at the core of rights and abuse of rights, and that is directly linked with civility and society as we know it."



    Is this supposed to mean something? Because in its current form it is completely meaningless.

  • Snoopy

    ^ Sorry I guess I missed that chapter in my civics class.



    Now can you tell me what the hell that has to do with some assholes doing a beat down on some unfortunate person who was walking down the street minding his own business?

  • Amanda Harletsch

    I'm saying that violence takes more victims in poor areas than any other, maybe in some other countries is more a matter of class than race, but here the racial(social construct foremost) differences seems to be the bigger social divide.

    Civic directives...maybe to much of an abstracition for you: "civil rights"; "civil liberty"; "civic duties"; "civic pride", A sense of respect and belonging for a bigger identity in global times, the attitudes and behavior of a good citizen in relation to his role and others.

    related to migration and racial hate awareness (CIVIC DIRECTIVE PER SE)"We are all well aware of globalization as a phenomenon that is taking over the planet. However, the word globalization frightens because it evokes the threat of world takeover by business and political oligarchies; its better half is globalism, a new kind of civism extended to the proportions of the globe and to our forced cohabitation with entirely different cultures (actually Canada, Australia and the Netherlands are well advanced in that political arena). What I want to do is to achieve by distributing Global Village Square in many cities of the world, including and especially those in trouble, is to help change the hard and crude perception of globalization into something that makes more sense. Globalism relates to civism, the ethics of the citizen sharing in the privileges of what his or her city has to offer. It is the feeling of what are our rights, privileges and obligations as citizens of a very large multicultural world society. The Global Village Square project is an integral response to localized acts of violence that are expanded by their media impact."

  • Snoopy

    You lost me there Amanda. "What about thinking of violence as derivative of poverty, of anger and lack of civic directives rather that merely race huh...?"



    HUH? There are a lot of impoverished Asian and Mexican workers and I don't see them riding around bashing and mugging others that are not Asians or Mexicans. Why and what are they angry about? And what are civic directives? Do you mean welfare and public housing? What are civic directives?

  • Amanda Harletsch

    What about thinking of violence as derivative of poverty, of anger and lack of civic directives rather that merely race huh...?



    a bit more complicated than to simply doom people to racial simplifications!



    How far are racists from any origen from the thugs in this case?

    Not that far from being the same!

  • angry_pickle

    not even Gothamist will point out the ethnicity of the suspect.



    Because Gothamist doesn't want to give the impression that crime rate is raising and a large number of them are being committed by young black men. Oh no, that would be too politically incorrect: reality is a racist? ... no no we can't report on that.





  • berniegoetz

    Splicer: please add presumptuous, anti-white racists such as yourself to the list of domestic terrorists.



    Bodo: Yeah, not even Gothamist will point out the ethnicity of the suspect. Typical ethnocentric hypocrisy. If they were white they'd probably put the word in 50 pt, blinking, bright blue font.

  • bodo

    Splicer:

    "The men in the SUV, described as African-American, then chased the pair."



    Can vicious black thugs be included in your domestic terrorist watch list?





    Kind of disturbing that virtually none of the reports are including the description of the assailants.



    http://www.nydailynews.com/news/ny_crime/2008/12/08/2008-12-08_task_force_hunting_brooklyn_thugs_in_hat.html

  • jimbobklyn

    one of the saddest things i've ever read.

    my heart goes out to the families.

    peace.

  • Amanda Harletsch

    It is sad that those attackers, that stay alive are the worse of humanity!

  • VanessaNYC

    Billiamsburg,



    What? Are you seriously making a joke about this?

  • Tar_Baby

    The National Action Network won't be attending the vigil? That's odd.

  • Splicer

    White supremacists and gay bashers are domestic terrorists. Treat them accordingly.

  • Billiamsburg

    Obama won't you do something!!

blog comments powered by Disqus

send a tip

tips@gothamist.com