Nation IN BRIEF : NEW YORK : Eyewitness Indicted in Fatal Attack Case

An eyewitness in the killing of a black teen-ager who decided at the last moment not to testify against his friends was charged with 2nd-degree murder in the slaying. John Vento, 21, was charged with intentional murder and showing a depraved indifference to human life in the August, 1989, slaying of Yusuf Hawkins in Brooklyn. Vento’s decision forced a postponement in the trial, and it was seen as a major blow to the prosecution’s efforts to build cases against the seven others charged. Hawkins and three others had gone to the predominantly white Brooklyn neighborhood of Bensonhurst to look at a used car when they were attacked by baseball-bat-wielding white youths.