Hate crime wave in New York

2010 - 3 reports expose hate crimes against Asian women and Hispanic men.Show more

Police have arrested three juveniles in attacks on five Asian women on the Lower East Side.

Police say the group struck five times between March 31 and Monday, three of those times at the Baruch Houses, a sprawling public housing complex comprised of 17 apartment buildings.

The victims, Asian women ranging in age from 50 to 71, were jumped and beaten by the group after apparently being picked based on their ethnicity.

Surveillance video captured the group, comprised of three young men and two young women. They typically waited in the lobbies of the apartment complexes.

Once the spotted a target, they would surround the victims. The girls would beat them with their hands and fists while the young men watch.

Police arrested three suspects on Friday night and charged them with assault as a hate crime. The suspects are two girls, aged 12 and 15, and one 15-year-old boy. Investigators said their parents brought them to the precinct to face the charges.

No money was taken in the attacks, and the victims had no prior contact with their attackers, according to investigators.

Detectives from the NYPD's Hate Crimes Task Force began investigating because it appeared the group was randomly picking their victims solely because they are Asian.

The group was caught on surveillance camera at the scene of the first attack, last week inside the Samuel Gompers Houses at 90 Pitt Street.

Police were still looking for two more suspects.

Four people are under arrest in the beating of a 26-year-old Mexican man on Staten Island, believed to be a hate crime.

Fearing for his life, Rodulfo Olmedo described the beating as brutal and savage.

He was hit in the head. His face is swollen and there are bruises on his arms.

While he says they were shouting racial slurs at him, he was only thinking about the pain he was suffering.

He is still scared after learning four suspects have been arrested.

Rolston Hopson, Tyrone Goodman, William Marcano (all 17 years old) and a fourth suspect who is 15 face charges of assault as a hate crime, gang assault, robbery and a hate crime of aggravated harassment.

Caught on surveillance cameras, Rodulfo is seen returning to his apartment just steps from the bakery where he works when he is set upon by four teenagers wielding baseball bats and chains. Another camera shows them pounding on him while police say they were shouting racial insults.

"We believe at this time that they selected this victim either in whole or in substantial part because he was a Mexican," Richmond County District Attorney Daniel Donovan said.

One suspect then rifled through Rodulfo's pockets, grabbing a wallet and cell phone, before leaving him unconscious and bleeding.

As his family listens to his fight to survive, fighting back their own tears, Rodulfo says he has no hatred for the attackers, but he hopes they understand the pain they have caused him and his family.

Jury selection is scheduled to begin Monday in the trial of two men accused in the deadly beating of an Ecuadorian immigrant in Brooklyn, New York in 2008. Defendants Hakim Scott and Keith Phoenix allegedly shouted racial and anti-gay slurs at Jose Sucuzhanay while he walked arm-in-arm with his brother in the Bushwick neighborhood.