Special Prosecutor Sought in N.Y. Attack

Queens Dist. Atty. John J. Santucci, stymied in his investigation of the December racial attack in which a black man was struck and killed by an auto as he fled a group of white teen-agers, asked Gov. Mario M. Cuomo on Monday to name a special prosecutor to supersede him in the case.

Santucci, who has been blocked for weeks by the refusal of a key witness to cooperate, traveled to Albany to meet with the governor and Lawrence Kurlander, Cuomo’s director of criminal justice, to make the unusual request.

Kurlander said the special prosecutor may be needed to break the impasse and the governor was willing to name the official if that action “would play a useful role.”

“The governor wants to do something that is constructive,” Kurlander said.

‘Higher Level’

Hazel Dukes, president of the New York state branch of the National Assn. for the Advancement of Colored People, said: “The mere fact that the governor wants a thorough investigation moves it to a higher level.

“We need to know the whole truth,” she said. “We need to have a full investigation” into the attack on the three black men in the predominantly white Howard Beach neighborhood near Kennedy airport.

Santucci has been blocked by the refusal of Cedric Sandiford, one of the victims in the attack, to testify. Alton H. Maddox Jr., Sandiford’s lawyer, advised his client not to cooperate after police and prosecutors did not charge the driver of the car that hit Michael Griffith, who fled across a parkway from the group of youths armed with baseball bats and a tree limb.

Three Youths Charged

Three white youths were charged in the attack, but the chief accusations, including second-degree murder and manslaughter, were dropped by a state judge who said there was insufficient evidence, given Sandiford’s refusal to cooperate.

“I told the governor the problems I’m having in putting a case together,” Santucci said. “I don’t consider myself to be an impediment. I consider uncooperative witnesses to be the impediment.”