Charles Brown
>>> Marta Russell <ap888 at lafn.org> 02/19/99 11:20AM >>>
Did anybody happen to see this article below? It was sandwiched deeply
into the Business Section of the NYTimes-NYReport? It's similarities to
the gay hate crime case in Wyoming and racial based one in Texas but I guess because these nondisabled kids did not kill this disabled young man that justified the not-so-important location of the news item. Disturbing further is the lack of attention paid in the article to the similarities to the other situations.
Marta Russell
8 Charged with Tormenting Learning-disabled Man (NYTimes 2-17-99. C-23, "NYReport" Section)
Eight men and women enticed a man with learning disabilities to a party and then tormented him for almost three hours, the Monmouth County Prosecutor said yesterday.
"It as just cruelty," said John A. Kaye, the Prosecutor. The men and women were arrested Monday after a two-week investigation into the events that unfolded at a party on Jan. 30. Most of the suspects face charges of kidnapping or assault.
My. Kaye said the victim, Eric Krochmaluk, 23, was persuaded to go to the party with a promise that there was a girl there who wanted to meet him.
Once he entered the apartment in Keansburg, the group stripped him to his underwear and slapped and kicked him until they taped him into a plastic
garden chair, Mr. Kaye said. Mr. Krochmaluk's head was shaved and he was whipped with a knotted rope before he was driven to a wooded area where he was further beaten, Mr. Kaye said.
An hour later Mr. Krochmaluk staggered to a guard booth at a nearby commercial property. He was taken to a hospital, where he was treated and released, Mr. Kaye said.