D.A. considers bias charge in Long Beach beating

The Nassau County district attorney’s office is looking into allegations by a Hispanic Long Beach resident who claims that a group of black teens yelled racial epithets as they beat him last month.

Fernando Moreno, 26, said the teens uttered racial slurs as they kicked and beat him in the North Park section of Long Beach on Oct. 14. Three of the teens were arrested and charged with assault, but Chris Munzing, a spokesman for District Attorney Kathleen Rice, said those charges could be upgraded when the case is presented to a grand jury.

Munzing said that Gil Bernardino, executive director of the nonprofit Circulo De La Hispanidad in Long Beach, wrote a letter to Rice. “He asked us to investigate the possibility that it was a hate crime,” Munzing said. “We’re investigating the case.”

But Long Beach Police said that Moreno never mentioned the ethnic slurs when detectives first took his report after the incident through a translator at Long Beach Medical Center, where he was treated for a broken nose, multiple bruises and two cuts on his face that required stitches. “At that point, there was no indication of that, and therefore they were not charged with a bias crime,” said Lt. Bruce Meyer, a spokesman for the Long Beach Police Department.

Moreno, an immigrant from Peru who speaks limited English, said that neither the detectives nor the translator spoke Spanish. He maintains that the attack was racially motivated because his attackers did not try to take valuables, such as his watch, cell phone or wallet, in which he had $200. Moreno said he was walking to Waldbaum’s at about 8:30 p.m. when the teens jumped him from behind and kicked him while he was on the ground at East Market Street and Magnolia Boulevard.

Later that night, three suspects — Lawrence Evans, 18, Ryankane Dixon-Harley, 18, and an unnamed juvenile — were arrested and charged with assault. The fourth attacker has not been found. Asked to comment on the case, Evans's attorney, Leslie Shamis, said, “A person is innocent until proven guilty, and it would be inappropriate for me to comment.” Dixon-Harley's lawyer, Dennis Berkowsky, declined to comment.

Orlando Ariza, vice president of the Long Beach Latino Civic Association, speaking for Moreno, said, “One thing that I wanted to make sure is that you can’t attack a Hispanic person because that person doesn’t speak English or looks different, and think you’re going to get away with it. I’m very happy that something happened, and everyone knows that the next time someone is going to attack someone in Long Beach, there’s going to be consequences, no matter if you are black, blue, yellow or whatever.”

Ariza, who is also the grand knight of the Hispanic Knights of Columbus, said Moreno is a trustee and has lived in Long Beach for about six years.

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