COMMUNITY TO PROTEST RACIST ANTI-IMMIGRANT ATTACK IN

Protest and Vigil to take place at Patchogue Long Island Railroad Station at 7:00PM Friday, November 14

Progressives, immigrant rights activists, and community members have called for a vigil and protest of the
cowardly attack and murder of Ecuadoran immigrant Marcello Lucero. The event, organized by both Long Island residents and immigrant rights coalitions in the metropolitan region will protest the anti-immigrant and racist climate that has infected Suffolk County.

This climate was intensified when County Executive Steve Levy declared war on Latino residents of Suffolk County. But Latinos are not the only victims. Racism is alive and well in Suffolk County.

Suffolk County is the same county where John White, an African American man was unjustly convicted of murder in 2006 for defending his family at his home from a group of white vigilantes.

The murder of Marcello Lucero by a gang of racist high school youths from Patchogue-Medford High School last Saturday has taken place in a county where the local Ku Klux Klan has in the past month targeted three communities with racist literature.

Furthermore, anti-Obama graffiti has proliferated since the election of the first African American president in the U.S., President-Elect Barack Obama.

The seven youths now accused of killing Lucero were according to the police “hunting for a Mexican to beat
up.” The gang surrounded, assaulted and stabbed 38 year old worker Marcello Lucero near the Patchogue train Station.

The vigil will take place near the scene of the crime to be in solidarity with the Lucero family and the Ecuadoran community of the village.

Members of the May 1 Coalition of New York, and other groups, such as the Suffolk Peace Network as well as the Workplace Project and the Long Island Immigrant Alliance will march to the mayor’s office to show their anger at the heinous act, placing the responsibility squarely on the shoulders of  Steve Levy and his relentless campaign against immigrants. By pandering to local members of the Minutemen, Levy has pointed the way for racist attacks on people of color. Previous attacks on Latinos in Farmingville followed Levy’s approaches to white racists in Farmingville, a village close to Patchogue.

Directions to the vigil from the west are:
Take Southern State Parkway EAST to the end, last exit east:
Go east on Sunrise Highway, Rte. 27a.
Go to EXIT 52 A: County Road # 83: NORTH  OCEAN AVE/
FARMINGVILLE/PATCHOGUE.
Turn Right on Ocean Avenue;
Turn Right onto Church Street.
Left on Railroad Avenue
Park at municipal lot at LIRR Station.