NYPD: Arrest in killing of Ecuadorean immigrant

(AP) - Police said Wednesday they arrested one of theattackers who yelled slurs as they beat an Ecuadorean immigrant todeath on a city street, and investigators were looking for a secondman. Hakeem Scott,

News 12 Staff

Feb 26, 2009, 3:14 PM

Updated 5,768 days ago

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(AP) - Police said Wednesday they arrested one of theattackers who yelled slurs as they beat an Ecuadorean immigrant todeath on a city street, and investigators were looking for a secondman.
Hakeem Scott, 25, was arrested in the Dec. 7 attack on realestate broker Jose Sucuzhanay, which ignited outrage from New Yorkto Ecuador. Police said he was beaten with a bat and kicked by menshouting anti-Hispanic and anti-gay slurs as he walked arm-in-armwith his brother.
Scott, of the Bronx, was expected to be charged withsecond-degree murder as a hate crime on Thursday, police said. Notelephone number could be found for him, and authorities wereunsure whether he had a lawyer.
Police were looking for a second man they identified as KeithPhoenix, 28, also of the Bronx. No working telephone number couldbe found for him.
Sucuzhanay, 31, and his brotherwere accosted on a Brooklyn street after attending a church partyand stopping at a bar. Their attackers smashed a beer bottle overJose Sucuzhanay's head, hit him in the head with an aluminumbaseball bat and kicked him, police said.
His brother, Rommel Sucuzhanay, was able to run and call police.
The attack left Jose Sucuzhanay in a coma. He died five dayslater as his mother was en route from Ecuador to see him. He wasburied in Ecuador.
Prosecutors called the attack an appalling eruption of bigotry,and Mayor Michael Bloomberg branded it "a pointless and gutlesscrime." Hundreds of people gathered for a demonstration inBrooklyn condemning the attack, and officials in Ecuador monitoredthe investigation and discussed urging the U.S. Congress to back acampaign of anti-bias education.
The attack on Sucuzhanay came about a month after anotherEcuadorean immigrant, Marcelo Lucero, was stabbed to death inPatchogue, on Long Island. Prosecutors said seven teenagers chargedin that assault had set out to find a Hispanic person to attack.
Suspect in alleged bias attack still on the loose