Nation IN BRIEF : NEW YORK : Youth on Trial in Bensonhurst Slaying
A Brooklyn youth accused of assault and riot in the murder of a black teen-ager “willingly joined” a crowd that confronted the victim with baseball bats and clubs, the prosecution charged. Steven Curreri, 19, is the only one of eight defendants not facing murder charges in the death of Yusuf Hawkins. Hawkins and three friends had traveled to mostly white Bensonhurst on Aug. 23, 1989, to look at a used car. They ran into a group of white youths who mistook them for a group rumored to be looking for trouble, and Hawkins was shot dead.
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