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NEW YORK, NY July 01, 2005 —In New York, a black man is still recovering from a fractured skull after he was allegedly beaten with a baseball bat by a white teenager. The incident occurred in the Howard Beach section of Queens. That’s the same neighborhood where a black man was killed almost 20 years ago after being chased into traffic by a group of whites.

WNYC's Beth Fertig has more.

REPORTER: The assault allegedly took place early Wednesday morning when three black men were chased by three whites. Police say nineteen year old Nicholas Minucci confessed to beating 22 year old Glenn Moore. They say Minucci also acknowledged that one of his friends uttered a racial epithet after the beating. Minucci’s lawyer now claims Moore threatened to rob his client with a screwdriver.

Yesterday, Minucci was charged with assault. Prosecutors are treating it as a hate crime. Meanwhile, community leaders flocked to Moore’s hospital bed. Among them the Reverend Al Sharpton.

SHARPTON: Nineteen years ago we came to Howard Beach. And the horrors of that time came to mind.

REPORTER: In that incident, a young black man named Michael Griffith was killed after his car broke down and he went into a pizza parlor with his friends. A group of whites chased the men with baseball bats while shouting racial slurs. Griffith was killed when he fled into oncoming traffic. In a press conference a few days later, former Mayor Ed Koch compared it to a lynching.

KOCH: It’s intolerable, and unacceptable and this city will rise up in its wrath against those who perpetrated that monstrosity and those who support it.

REPORTER: Three teenagers were found guilty of manslaughter in the 1986 crime. With echoes of that previous case, the current mayor - Michael Bloomberg – has promised a thorough investigation of Moore’s beating.

BLOOMBERG: I think if you look today the city has pulled together, learned a lesson, will not let anyone tear us apart.

REPORTER: Howard Beach was one of the most racially divisive incidents in the city. Reverend Sharpton led rallies through the neighborhood and black protesters clashed with white residents who resented the negative attention.

Today, Howard Beach is still a mostly white neighborhood of single family homes and tiny green lawns. While other minorities are growing blacks make up less than 1 percent of the population. Fifteen year old Heather Widom says she knows what people in other neighborhoods think:

WIDOM: We’re racists. Automatically they’re like I don’t like you, you live in Howard Beach.

REPORTER: Many residents are reluctant to see the two incidents as anything more than a terrible coincidence of geography. On a local bus, everyone was talking about the recent beating.

QUARANTA: It’s all over the newspaper and on the news!

REPORTER: Cecilia Quaranta and her teenage daughter disagree about whether the community is hostile to blacks.

QUARANTA: It’s changing. GIRL: They still don’t want black people in the area. Cause it’s mostly white.

REPORTER: Some residents wonder if this week’s attack was driven by something else. Howard Beach has had a rash of robberies. Police say Moore’s companions admitted they went to Howard Beach looking to steal a car. They didn’t. But 38 year old Matt Happaney says he could see how Minucci and his friends might have been suspicious.

HAPPANEY: It ain’t like the last time. It’s a totally different thing. These guys were up to no good. They’re coming into the neighborhood trying to steal a car. They even admitted that. You gotta protect your property.

REPORTER: But there’s no evidence the perpetrators had any information about what the young black men were doing in the neighborhood. And Mayor Bloomberg has warned that even if they did - there is no excuse for any racially motivated assault, or vigilante justice. For WNYC, I’m Beth Fertig.