Long Island-based Newsday has been following the Marcelo Lucero murder in great detail, even sending a reporter to Ecuador to interview his friends and family. But some see coverage of this case, which involves a group of American youths who allegedly attacked and killed an immigrant, as too positive about immigration.

One Newsday reporter was thrown out of a parents’ meeting at the school the teenagers attended, after some parents screamed at her to leave. Six school board members were also present, but none did anything to prevent the reporter’s expulsion.

More recently, Newsday reports, a dozen protesters, including several who identified themselves as Minutemen, picketed the newspaper’s headquarters, holding signs that said “What about Americans killed by illegal aliens?” and “Newsday Anti-American.” The protested said that Newsday had devoted too much coverage to the murder and that it was sympathetic to illegal immigrants.

The protesters were quick to say they felt sorry for Lucero’s family, but they objected to Newsday’s following the story, especially the coverage of Lucero’s funeral in Ecuador.

A few days after the killing, Newsday reported, Suffolk County Executive Steve Levy said it would have been a “one-day story” anywhere else. But Newsday says its coverage will continue. Meanwhile, a far larger crowd gathered for a vigil in Patchogue to protest the hate crime and call for peace.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x58A6o2NEBs

Seven Long Island teenagers have been charged with hate crimes for the murder of an Ecuadorian immigrant earlier this month. The high school students were indicted today for an attack that ended with one of them stabbing Marcelo Lucero.

In a case that tops last summer’s murder of Mexican immigrant Luis Ramirez in Shenandoah, Pa., the young men were riding around the town of Patchogue looking for Latino men to attack. They called it “beaner-hopping.” Strangely, one of the teens was of Hispanic origin himself.

Long Island’s local paper, Newsday, has followed this story all the way to Ecuador, where a reporter interviewed his grieving family. Lucero, who had lived in the United States for 15 years, had been planning to return to Ecuador soon.

Steve Levy, the Suffolk County executive, has spoken out against illegal immigration, and relations between locals and immigrants have been tense. In an effort to prevent future hate crimes against immigrants, Levy said he was hiring a Hispanic liaison to the police and, according to Newsday, “broadening the county’s ‘Hate’s Not Cool’ program.”

Meanwhile, the AP quotes Ecuadorean Ambassador Luis Gallegos:

“It is tragic that a crime of this nature, a xenophobic lynching, happened just as the United States celebrates a historic step forward in which racial barriers have been overcome.”