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Kitchen Table Kibitzing 12/20/23: Howard Beach [1]
['This Content Is Not Subject To Review Daily Kos Staff Prior To Publication.']
Date: 2023-12-20
37 years ago today an explosion of hatred shook the nation. The death of a black man at the hands of a gang of white teenagers was extreme in its brazenness and brutality.
12 against 2. Tough guys.
The mob attacked Griffith and Sandiford. Grimes, who drew a knife on the angry mob, escaped with minor injuries. Sandiford begged, “God, don’t kill us” before Lester knocked him down with a baseball bat. With the mob in hot pursuit, the severely beaten Griffith ran the nearby Belt Parkway where he jumped through a small hole in a fence adjacent to the highway. As he staggered across the busy six-lane expressway, trying to escape his attackers, he was hit and instantly killed by a car driven by Dominic Blum, a court officer and son of a New York police officer.
The cops weren’t any better.
At 1:00 a.m. when the police arrived at the scene, they encountered a bloody and dazed Sandiford nearby, walking west on the parkway. The officers brought him back to Griffin’s lifeless body on the parkway. Initially he was considered a suspect and placed in a squad car. The officers refused him medical attention and forced him to tell his version of the assault several times until dawn. That morning New York Mayor Edward Koch and African American police chief Benjamin Ward condemned the crime in the media. Koch compared the incident to a lynching while Ward scolded the Queens commanding officer for his officers’ insensitivity toward Sandiford.
After public outrage, the punkasses were arrested and, reluctantly, charged.
After witnesses repeatedly refused to cooperate with Queens district attorney John J. Santucci, then-governor Mario Cuomo appointed Charles Hynes as special prosecutor to handle the Griffith case on January 13, 1987. The move came after pressure from black leaders on Cuomo to dismiss Santucci, who was seen as too partial to the defendants to prosecute the case effectively.[15] Twelve defendants were indicted by a grand jury on February 9, 1987, including the original three charged in the case. Their original indictments had been dismissed after the witnesses refused to cooperate in the case.[citation needed] A little over a year after the death of Griffith, and after 12 days of jury deliberations, the three main defendants, Kern, Lester and Ladone, were convicted on December 21, 1987, of second-degree manslaughter and first-degree assault. Michael Pirone, 18, was acquitted.[10]
At least the worst of them were brought to some justice.
On December 21, 1987, the jury found three of the four principal defendants guilty of second degree manslaughter and first degree assault, but innocent on attempted murder and riot charges. Jon Lester was sentenced to 10 to 30 years in prison. Ladone received a 5 to 15 years sentence, and Kern was sentenced 6 to 18 years in prison. The jury acquitted Michael Pirone of all charges. The other participants received lighter sentences, and in most cases, community service.
It appears that a couple of them were haunted by what they did.
Jason Ladone, then 29, was released from prison in April 2000 after serving 10 years, and later became a city employee. He was arrested again in June 2006, on drug charges.[17] In May 2001, Jon Lester was released and deported to his native England where he studied electrical engineering and started his own business. He died on August 14, 2017, at age 48 in a suspected suicide. He left behind a wife and three children.[18] Scott Kern was released from prison in 2002, the last of the three main perpetrators to be released.
Might any of the others be working for TFG?
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