Suspected Gunman in N.Y. Racial Killing Surrenders
The suspected gunman in the racially motivated slaying of a black teen-ager in Brooklyn surrendered to police in upstate New York today, ending a weeklong manhunt in a killing that sparked tension citywide.
Oneonta police said Joseph Fama walked into the police station and said he was wanted for murder in New York City. Oneonta is about 130 miles northwest of New York.
Witnesses told police that Fama, 18, shot Yusef Hawkins on Aug. 23 in Brooklyn’s predominantly white Bensonhurst neighborhood, where the 16-year-old and three black friends had gone to look at a used car. Police said the four blacks were mistaken for friends of a white woman in the neighborhood who reportedly had switched boyfriends to date a black man.
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