Hate Crimes

Hate Crimes

Hate crimes today are occurring more then ever before mainly because of the diversity and different groups of people going to the same school everyday or work. In Patchogue-Medford we had one that was very tough to handle and shocked a lot of people, it made national news and it happened while I was a junior in Patchogue-Medford High school.

Patchogue throughout the last couple of years has had a very dramatic increase in the amount of foreign immigrants. A majority of these immigrants are Spanish and send their kids to public school. I remember when I was going from ninth grade to tenth I realized this huge increase in Spanish kids and our school then started to have ESL (English speaking Language) classes. These classes were all located in one hallway and it was where all of the kids in these classes hung out. It didn't take long for a few problems to arise actually I think it was in the first week. The hallway is so packed out that you can't even get through it sometimes and all it really took was a few pushes to start things up. A couple of white kids got into a fight with Spanish kids and that was the day it really started everything. From then on in things got worse and groups of kids were targeting Spanish people outside of school and jumping them for money. A few more fights happened in school between the white kids and the Spanish kids and the school started having lockdowns that it got so bad. Calls were being made that the Latin kings were coming to our school everyday and school started getting cancelled and everything was getting worse. In gym one day my friend got into a fight with a Spanish kid because the kid spit on him and now it was looked as a hate crime no matter what. The school started suspending people for months on the count of a hate crime and police were notified. Every single day from then on in you had to get your bag checked and there were at least four police officers in the school on a school day. All these events lead up to the real hate crime that stunned our community.

It was a regular day in November and I was in my second period class waiting for the bell to ring. I sit next to my friend Jose Pacheco who I grew up with and has been on my bus my whole life. We started talking and it was Friday so I asked him what he was doing later and he said to me "I'm probably going to be with Jeff and them by Main Street", and I knew that that was just asking for trouble but I didn't really say that. I later on see him at this party and all of the kids that were convicted were there. The party died quickly and I never talked to Jose because everyone got kicked out. To this day I feel like I could have stopped him from going with Jeff and those kids by telling him I have him with a ride home. I wish I could go back and I took it pretty rough for a good amount of time after I heard what happened. I was at my friend's house the next day and someone called us saying that Jeff and them killed a Mexican last night. I didn't want to believe it until I saw it on the