Cops' bias unit probing attack on college team
BY CHRISTINA BOYLE
DAILY NEWS STAFF WRITER
Thursday, September 20th 2007, 4:00 AM
The NYPD hate crimes unit will investigate the brutal attack on a college basketball team and two coaches, Police Commissioner Raymond Kelly said yesterday.
Kelly weighed into the furor surrounding the violent beating of the Manhattan Community College sports team after community leaders blasted the NYPD's failure to report the incident as a racial attack.
"I'm told at no time did either side make any statements concerning race, as far as it being racially motivated," Kelly said.
"What we have done as a result of the [Daily News] article written today is engage our hate crimes task force to do an investigation of this matter."
The players say they were set upon by a gang of white men as they headed home on Sept. 11 from a four-hour practice at the lower Manhattan school.
As the students passed the Patriot, a rowdy Chambers St. bar, they were bombarded with racist shouts of "n-----s" and "this is what slavery feels like," the players say.
One person in the group, Marquis Scott, 18, says he was thrown into the middle of the street, jumped on and kicked.
Police arrived and immediately handcuffed Scott, the son of an NYPD officer, and charged him with misdemeanor assault while letting the assailants go, he said.
The team called its coach, Chester Mapp. Mapp and an assistant coach followed the students to the Brooklyn Bridge subway station, where the students and the coaches were attacked, Mapp said.
"I'm very shook up, nervous, kind of scared," Mapp said.
Scott's lawyer Bonita Zelman was joined by City Councilman Charles Barron (D-Brooklyn) and Roger Abel of the National Black Police Association in urging Kelly to call the attack a hate crime.
Five people have been arrested in the case; four of the five are Manhattan Community College students, Kelly said.
BY CHRISTINA BOYLE
DAILY NEWS STAFF WRITER
Thursday, September 20th 2007, 4:00 AM
The NYPD hate crimes unit will investigate the brutal attack on a college basketball team and two coaches, Police Commissioner Raymond Kelly said yesterday.
Kelly weighed into the furor surrounding the violent beating of the Manhattan Community College sports team after community leaders blasted the NYPD's failure to report the incident as a racial attack.
"I'm told at no time did either side make any statements concerning race, as far as it being racially motivated," Kelly said.
"What we have done as a result of the [Daily News] article written today is engage our hate crimes task force to do an investigation of this matter."
The players say they were set upon by a gang of white men as they headed home on Sept. 11 from a four-hour practice at the lower Manhattan school.
As the students passed the Patriot, a rowdy Chambers St. bar, they were bombarded with racist shouts of "n-----s" and "this is what slavery feels like," the players say.
One person in the group, Marquis Scott, 18, says he was thrown into the middle of the street, jumped on and kicked.
Police arrived and immediately handcuffed Scott, the son of an NYPD officer, and charged him with misdemeanor assault while letting the assailants go, he said.
The team called its coach, Chester Mapp. Mapp and an assistant coach followed the students to the Brooklyn Bridge subway station, where the students and the coaches were attacked, Mapp said.
"I'm very shook up, nervous, kind of scared," Mapp said.
Scott's lawyer Bonita Zelman was joined by City Councilman Charles Barron (D-Brooklyn) and Roger Abel of the National Black Police Association in urging Kelly to call the attack a hate crime.
Five people have been arrested in the case; four of the five are Manhattan Community College students, Kelly said.
