In late October 2008, 35-year-old Francisco Hernandez says he was called a "fucking Mexican" and told to "get out of this country" during an encounter with a knife-wielding racist at a Patchogue antiques shop.
Then, less than a month later, Hernandez's Patchogue home--where he lives with his wife and three children--was vandalized. Along with eggs splattered across his windows and a broken flowerpot, the vandals drew red swastikas on an "Immigrants Welcome Here" poster on his front lawn, he says.
Those incidents weren't classified as hate crimes, although Hernandez, a member of the Suffolk County Hispanic Advisory Board, believes they should have been. Beyond that, Hernandez says he was actively encouraged to keep quiet about the crimesby Suffolk County's Director of Minority Affairs, Mel Guadalupe. Guadalupe, for his part, has denied that he ever told Hernandez not to speak publicly about the hate crimes.**
Both the crimes against Hernandez and the intimidation by Guadalupe came to the forefront at a hate crime forum in Patchogue on September 10, 2009. At the forum, Hernandez (shown below) made a public statement that mentioned being a victim of two hate crimes that the Suffolk County Police Department's hate crimes unit never followed up on. Afterward, he said that he had been told not to speakat the forum by Guadalupe, under the threat of losing his position on the Hispanic Advisory Board.
In his statement at the hate crime forum, Hernandez also mentioned speaking with Det. Sgt. Robert Reecks, the head of the Suffolk police hate crimes unit, when they both attended a meeting of the Hispanic Advisory Board on September 3, 2009. Hernandez said that he recently asked Reecks about the incident with the knife-wielding nativist, and why Suffolk police officers said they needed to check Hernandez's immigration status after the crime, despite the fact that he was the victim.
In reaction to Hernandez's allegations of intimidation, Guadalupe (shown below) made a statement at the Suffolk County legislature last Thursday, denying some of Hernandez's claims. Guadalupe said he told Hernandez that if Hernandez attended the hate crime forum as a representative of the Hispanic Advisory Board, then he wouldn't be able to speak about the hate crimes, but that he never told Hernandez that he couldn't address the gathering otherwise.
Alex Gutierrez, the chairman of the Hispanic Advisory Board, spoke after Guadalupe at the legislature meeting, and also denied Hernandez's intimidation claim.
Following Gutierrez, the next in line to address the legislature (and the handful of radio and TV reporters on hand) was Det. Sgt. Reecks, who said that he had never spoken to Hernandez, and that Suffolk County police are prohibited from asking crime victims or witnesses about immigration status, as a matter of policy. In his statement, Reecks mentioned that he attended the same meeting of the Hispanic Advisory Board where Hernandez claimed to speak with him, but didn't mention that Hernandez was also there.
In a phone interview today, Reecks said that at the time of the Hispanic Advisory Board meeting, he didn't know who Hernandez was, but that they were most likely in the same room together. He did not remember anyone asking him about the issues that Hernandez claims he asked.
Hernandez, who works as a UPS driver and is a steward for the Teamsters, tells a different story. I spoke with him for two hours on Sunday night, and learned that his issues with Suffolk County government and police go beyond this particular instance of intimidation. He also feels that Guadalupe, Gutierrez, and Reecks are all twisting the truth.
On the night of the Patchogue hate crime forum, Hernandez arrived an hour early to speak with Guadalupe, he said. At that point, Hernandez thought that he would be representing the Hispanic Advisory Board on the hate crime task force.
Instead, Guadalupe and Gutierrez pulled him aside and told him that Gutierrez would serve on the task force. When Hernandez asked Guadalupe why they made him take a day off from work for no reason, Guadalupe said that he needed to speak with him anyway about other issues, Hernandez said.
The vandalism incident with the red swastikas had been featured in a recently released report on violence against immigrants in Suffolk County, and Guadalupe wanted to know how Hernandez's story got into the report, Hernandez said. Guadalupe had confronted Hernandez about the report, by the Southern Poverty Law Center, once before, and he believed that Hernandez had spoken to their researchers when he should have kept quiet, Hernandez said.
Guadalupe wanted to make sure that the story wouldn't be repeated at the hate crime forum, according to Hernandez.
In addition to speaking at the forum, Guadalupe chided Hernandez for a separate incident involving comments by Suffolk County Executive Steve Levy about Legis. Jack Eddington, Hernandez said (Guadalupe and Gutierrez denied that comments about any legislators were made by the county executive at the meeting).
Here's how Hernandez remembers the situation:
Guadalupe told him that there are things you're not allowed to say, and that he was messing with his "bread and butter." According to Hernandez, Guadalupe said that it wasn't Hernandez's job to go and snitch and talk about things that are going on with the advisory board, especially when the county executive is speaking.
But despite the alleged strong-arming by Guadalupe--which Hernandez said seemed pulled out of a Mafia playbook--Hernandez went forward and spoke at the forum. After the forum ended, Hernandez spoke to someone about his situation with Guadalupe, unaware that the story would find it's way into Newsday.
According to Hernandez, all of that drama emerged because Hernandez wanted to talk about incidents that he thought were hate crimes. The crimes themselves--and the county's response--also merit an examination.
In late-October 2008, Hernandez was shopping at a Patchogue antique store when a man--white, tattooed, in his mid-30s, and claiming to be a Marine--entered and said that Hernandez needed to get out of the store and, beyond that, out of the country, Hernandez said. At first, Hernandez thought the man was joking, but as the man continued to berate him as an "illegal" and an "anchor baby," Hernandez realized he was serious.
As Hernandez tried to leave the store, the man turn toward him and held a knife to his throat. The store owner--who had disappeared for a minute to call the police--began screaming, Hernandez said.
Eventually, the man allowed Hernandez to leave the store, and the police arrived around the same time. Despite the fact that Hernandez was the victim, the police asked him for his driver's license, saying that they had to verify if he was legal or not, he said.
After protestations, he handed over his license, and later went to the police station to file a report, Hernandez said. He read and signed the report, but then, after he had gone home, he got a call from the police telling him he needed to come in and sign a revised statement, Hernandez said.
According to Hernandez, the revised statement had been cleaned of the anti-immigrant slurs, which the officer said weren't necessary. Hernandez said that he was told that the incident was "criminal mischief," and not a hate crime. The officer told Hernandez that he shouldn't be so worried because the perpetrator was going to jail anyway, according to Hernandez.
It wasn't much longer before Hernandez was dealing with the Suffolk police regarding another incident that he thought was a hate crime.
On November 14, 2008, Hernandez attended a vigil for Ecuadorian immigrant Marcelo Lucero, who had been beaten and stabbed to death by a group of young white men who were out "beaner jumping." The feeling in Patchogue on the night of the vigil was one of unity and common American pride, much like the days after 9/11, Hernandez thought. But the next morning, he realized that not all residents shared the same feelings.
When Hernandez, who is a UPS truck driver and a steward for the Teamsters, returned from grocery shopping with his wife the next morning, he found that the front of their house had been vandalized. Eggs had been thrown at a window where he had hung pro-Obama and pro-immigrant posters, about six posters in all.
When Hernandez saw the vandalism done to his house, including the swastikas, he called the police, insisting that he was the victim of a hate crime, he said. But the officer said that if Hernandez and his family weren't Jewish, then it wasn't a hate crime, according to Hernandez. The officer also said that having so many posters in his window was inviting this sort of attack, Hernandez said. "You know no one likes Obama here," the officer said, according to Hernandez.
The officer classified the crime as criminal mischief, saying that it was probably just some kids playing around, Hernandez said. But before leaving, the officer also took the swastika-covered sign before Hernandez was able to photograph it, according to Hernandez.
When he mentioned the swastika incident to Guadalupe, Hernandez said, the response from the director of minority affairs was that Hernandez should move to a different town because it wasn't safe for him to live in Patchogue.
Hernandez spoke about both incidents at a Patchogue church gathering, weeks after the death of Marcelo Lucero. Representatives from the Suffolk police department were at the meeting, and told Hernandez that police internal affairs would look into his complaints, he said.
There was also a lawyer at the church meeting, but Guadalupe, according to Hernandez, recommended that Hernandez stay quiet about the incidents, for the safety of his family. Hernandez shouldn't make the incidents too public, or more attacks might follow, Guadalupe said, according to Hernandez.
Guadalupe showed Hernandez the way to the back door, and told him to go out that way, so as to avoid the media, Hernandez said.
Internal affairs was now aware of his problems, but that only made things worse, Hernandez said.
Over the next few months, Hernandez began receiving calls from the Fifth Precinct asking him why he complained about the incidents, and telling him that he should visit the police station to straighten things out, Hernandez said. With each call, Hernandez asked who he was speaking with, but was never given a name, he said. He never went to the police station.
At the same time, police cars began appearing outside his house, Hernandez said. By his estimate, he saw cop cars outside 25 to 30 times over the span of a few months.
He might have thought the police were interested in protecting him and his family, if it wasn't for one time when an officer pulled his wife over shortly after she drove away from the house, Hernandez said.
According to Hernandez, the officer said that he pulled her over because her license plate was missing a screw. But instead of writing her a ticket, the officer sent a message to Hernandez through her: "Tell your husband to be quiet. Tell him to keep his mouth shut," he said, according to Hernandez.
Hernandez contacted the Suffolk District Attorney's office around April, 2009, telling them that he was being harassed by the local police. After that, the calls and police visits stopped, he said.
Since the initial vandalism incident in November, Hernandez's house has been vandalized several more times. Windows have been smashed, flowerpots have been broken. He keeps re-cementing the broken flowerpots and fixing the windows.
Hoping for help for a high-ranking county executive, Hernandez told Guadalupe about these incidents back at the November Patchogue church meeting, Hernandez said. Guadalupe promised that something was going to be done, but that "these things take time," according to Hernandez. Guadalupe told Hernandez that he should be worrying about his family, Hernandez said, but his real motive was to keep the hate crimes quiet. "I was so naive," Hernandez said. "I didn’t know what was going on."
But safety is a concern. Hernandez's wife didn't want him to make his story public for fear of reprisal, and they're thinking about moving. How can he feel safe in a town where he feels like he's targeted by fringe residents and the police?
There's another hate crime forum tonight at 5:30pm in Riverhead, and Hernandez plans to speak there. He feels compelled to tell the truth about what's going on in Suffolk, he said, and plans to make some suggestions for the hate crime task force, as well as call for the resignation of Mel Guadalupe. Hernandez says he plans to stay on the Hispanic Advisory Board, and that if he was outspoken before, he'll be even more so now.
Hernandez said he's gotten messages from Mel Guadalupe, one extending an olive branch and another saying that if he thought things were bad, they're going to get worse. But Hernandez isn't interested in reconciling right now.
Of Guadalupe, he says: "You're a puppet, I'm not. I'm fighting for people, you're not. You're fighting for one man only. I'm fighting for the community."
This post first appearedSeptember 22, 2009, on Long Island Wins.
**I spoke to Mel Guadalupe on the phone on September 22, 2009, and he reiterated what he had previously said at the Suffolk County Legislature regarding Hernandez's statements. I asked Guadalupe if we could review further allegations that would be made in this blog post, but he said he had to attend a meeting. When I called him back around 2pm that day, the receptionist said he would be in a meeting until 3:30pm. I left my office and cell phone numbers with her, but I haven't heard back from him.
NOTES:
As to why the two incidents with Hernandez were never labeled hate crimes, Reecks said that the first incident with the knife in the antique store was not passed along to him, probably because it didn't have the marks of a hate crime, which makes sense according to Hernandez's story about the altered report.
When asked about the second crime involving the swastika, Reecks said that according to Hernandez's statement at the time, there was not sufficient evidence to consider it a hate crime. That could mean that the report is missing information related to the swastika or the pro-immigrant posters.
I filed a Freedom of Information Law request today via email to obtain related police documents, but haven't heard back yet.