Huang Chen: Finally, an update

[kasia]

Mar 25, 2005, AsianWeek

Community Buzzing Over Murder Trial in New York

NEW YORK — The trial of the murderers of an 18-year-old Chinese delivery boy has united the New York Asian American community.

Huang Chen was barely recognizable after being viciously pummeled and stabbed to death as he delivered a $10 order of Chinese food.

“People worry about a perception that we are not real people, that we really aren’t Americans,” said City Councilman John Liu (D-Queens).

“It’s like killing a dog. The notion that an Asian person is not human is what permits two or three 16-year-olds to commit a crime of such brutality,” Liu said.

“The community is very concerned because we feel like Asians are being targeted,” said York Chan, of the Chinese Consolidated Benevolent Association, a Manhattan-based coalition of 60 groups.

Chen’s killing in a Rochdale Village apartment in southeast Queens was the sixth high-profile assault of a Chinese food worker in the past five years.

“He was tortured to death,” his sister, Summer Chen, 21, said. “I don’t know how could they do this to my brother.”

The worst for Summer, her sister, Yvonne, and their parents — who all have attended each day of the trial — will come as the prosecution closes its case with testimony from the medical examiner’s office, including gruesome autopsy photos.

[Grasshopper]

Of course I hope the murderers pay the severest price. I'm pro death penalty.

But I don't agree with some of these comments:

“People worry about a perception that we are not real people, that we really aren’t Americans,” said City Councilman John Liu (D-Queens).

“It’s like killing a dog. The notion that an Asian person is not human is what permits two or three 16-year-olds to commit a crime of such brutality,” Liu said.

I think this politician might be engaging in demogogery.

These two punks murdered this man but what's with his interpretation?

It's not like black punks don't also brutalize anyone else. In fact most victims of these kinds of crimes are other blacks. People of all races are being brutally murdered by black criminals. Where is the evidence that this man was murdered because his killers saw him as "not real people", as "not really American" or that "an Asian is not really human".

Seems like a politician exploiting a murder as a political campaign.

A few weeks ago a beautiful White actress in New York was slaughtered by a black punk. What if White politicians claimed she was murdered in part because of racial factors?

Maybe she was? I don't know.

Maybe the black killers were racists who killed him because he was Asian. Maybe. Or maybe they would have targeted any person who was a vulnerable delivery man.

I don't know. But I do know sometimes politicians try to exploit things. Look at the Terri Schiavo case.

[kasia]

i tend to agree with you, grasshopper (especially after he tried to drag out the tsunami situation for seemingly no other purpose but to keep the spotlight on himself), but part of me also wants to attribute it to innocent ignorance rather than the malicious use of this tragedy for his own benefit.

why is it so difficult to get news coverage of this trial?

[Grasshopper]

why is it so difficult to get news coverage of this trial?

Well, it should get more coverage especially because it is from one of the world's media capitals.

The reason it isn't covered more is probably because -

1. It's a ratings killer. It's another grimey, big city, ugly murder. Big turn off.

2. Too many celebrity cases hogging the news.

3. No White racist killer.

4. No missing White girl.

5. No real mystery to. Black punks spot vulnerable delivery guy and beat him to death. Nobody doubts their guilt.

6. Related to 1. it's just a depressing story that makes people want to hit the remote control and be glad the victim wasn't a family member.
:frown:

[SunWuKong]

5. No real mystery to. Black punks spot vulnerable delivery guy and beat him to death. Nobody doubts their guilt.

i tend to think it's because it's taboo to report that black guys tortured and murdered an Asian guy.

[Jung Rhee]

I had posted a similar article two weeks ago. I would like to add another aspect of Chinese restaurant in NYC.

I used to live in NYC, some, (not all) of these Chinese fastfood restaurants are operated by illegal immigrants I believe. (I was told they are Fukianese, the same people who tried to cross the border from Mexico.) I would never eat in some of these places. People look like they don't brush their hair and take a shower for long time. The chefs were squating? on the floor and chating with each others. When I ordered a pan fried noodle, I saw the chef got up and grab a handful of noodle and then grab some bean sprouts and unions with his bare hands. It was disgusting.

[hooligan]

I hope that justice prevails, but I don't believe throwing people in jail will solve anything in the long run. Just my two cents.

[kimpossible]

We could take them out for ice cream instead.

[kasia]

I had posted a similar article two weeks ago. I would like to add another aspect of Chinese restaurant in NYC.

I used to live in NYC, some, (not all) of these Chinese fastfood restaurants are operated by illegal immigrants I believe. (I was told they are Fukianese, the same people who tried to cross the border from Mexico.) I would never eat in some of these places. People look like they don't brush their hair and take a shower for long time. The chefs were squating? on the floor and chating with each others. When I ordered a pan fried noodle, I saw the chef got up and grab a handful of noodle and then grab some bean sprouts and unions with his bare hands. It was disgusting.

wth kind of insight does this offer into the case? it's just insulting, if anything.

[Jung Rhee]

I didn't say insights, more like a side note. :wink:

[Napoleon Chynamite]

wth kind of insight does this offer into the case? it's just insulting, if anything.

Exactly what I was thinking. How does this offer another useful side or "aspect" to the story or have anything to do with anything?

[lethal]

Bryant was convicted and faces 54 years to life.

There's coverage of this story in NYC papers, just not as much nationally. Also, the verdict was reported in the otehr Huang Chen thread in the Rant Room.

http://forums.yellowworld.org/showthread.php?t=22486

[deez nuts]

i tend to think it's because it's taboo to report that black guys tortured and murdered an Asian guy.

there are tons of past instances of chinese delivery guys getting attacked by these thugs and savages in nyc.

i hope the conviction of the savages that killed huang chen might make the other savages out there think twice about attacking and robbing hard working chinese delivery guys that are just trying to make a honest living and provide a future for themselves and possibly their families here in america.

[Grasshopper]

there are tons of past instances of chinese delivery guys getting attacked by these thugs and savages in nyc.

i hope the conviction of the savages that killed huang chen might make the other savages out there think twice about attacking and robbing hard working chinese delivery guys that are just trying to make a honest living and provide a future for themselves and possibly their families here in america.

Problem is most of them will never know about the case, the conviction and the punishment.

[imturok]

This is a social problem, I do not see it as racial.

[SunWuKong]

This is a social problem, I do not see it as racial.

i would agree if there is a sudden increase in black deliverymen being targetted as well.

[nonamerasian]

i would agree if there is a sudden increase in black deliverymen being targetted as well.

Are there many Black deliverymen in these neighborhoods where Asian deliverymen are targets?

[kasia]

i don't think we have enough information to assess whether it is or is not a hate crime. part of that, however, may be due to the fact that officers don't go through the thought process of it possibly being a hate crime, and therefore don't conduct a proper investigation into it.

[yoMAMA]

Are there many Black deliverymen in these neighborhoods where Asian deliverymen are targets?

from what i heard, alot of other deliverymans don't go to the really "bad" neighborhoods in NY.

[nonamerasian]

from what i heard, alot of other deliverymans don't go to the really "bad" neighborhoods in NY.

That's what I've observed.

And the few that do use cars or have restrictions on when and where they'll go written on their fliers.

[hooligan]

That's what I've observed.

And the few that do use cars or have restrictions on when and where they'll go written on their fliers.

I'm just speculating here, but I think that Huang probably didn't have much of a choice, much like delivery people of Chinese restaurants. While more mainstream places can dictate and protect their employees, the Chinese places either don't care or can't care.

[deez nuts]

from what i heard, alot of other deliverymans don't go to the really "bad" neighborhoods in NY.

i know a few friends whose parents own chinese take out places in bad neighborhoods. they hire latinos to do their deliveries.

a lot of these chinese take out places are family owned. in the case of huang chen, he was the son of the restaurant owner.

a lot of these delivery food guys that were robbed and/or murdered are family members.

[Grasshopper]

True you don't hear much about Asians targeting blacks.

Maybe the reason why the Asian delivery guys are being attacked is because they are the ones who are too ignorant, or too brave or too desparate to not go to certain areas?

Many people are not becoming victims because they say no to going to certain addresses.

It must make the family extra guilt ridden to know they sent their son to a dangerous neighborhood.

Some will forever blame themselves. :frown:

[deez nuts]

True you don't hear much about Asians targeting blacks

actually you do.

it's called giving blacks "the eye" and "extra attention" when they enter your store.

it was a big part of why rev. al sharpton was protesting in front of asian owned stores in the 80's.

[Banana]

Not sure we can compare getting "watched" in a store to "get brained by a hammer."

[kasia]

Delivering food, facing dangers

New York Daily News - New York,NY,USA

You have probably heard about Ming Kuang Chen, the Chinese food deliveryman who spent nearly four hellish days trapped in a broken elevator in the Bronx without food or water.
His ordeal may have had an unintended positive consequence: It has once again focused attention to the dangers food delivery workers are exposed to in this city every day.

Although his case had a happy ending, what Chen, 32, went through was bad enough.

Inside that elevator, Chen grew increasingly hungry and thirsty and, as the hours went by with no help coming, he became increasingly desperate. Thoughts of his wife and 10-year-old son back in China flooded his mind.

"I was thinking I'd never see them again," he said.

Fortunately, police officers finally found him last Wednesday. He was briefly treated for dehydration at Montefiore Medical Center and released.

But in the past in New York, other food delivery workers, especially those working for Chinese restaurants, have not been so lucky.

According to the Restaurant Opportunities Center of New York (ROC-NY), an immigrant workers' group that organizes and supports restaurant workers in the city, Chen's ordeal is only the tip of an iceberg of extraordinary hazards restaurant delivery workers face.

"At least one immigrant restaurant delivery worker has been brutally killed on the job every year since 2000," a ROC-NY press release said.

And it adds: "ROC-NY condemns the serious occupational safety and health hazards immigrant restaurant delivery workers face, both the extreme hardship of being stuck in an elevator for several days without recourse, and the extreme violence of being beaten to death with a baseball bat, as had occurred to another Chinese delivery worker in 2001."

Actually, a particularly brutal murder took place more recently.

On Feb. 13, 2004, an 18-year-old boy, Huang Chen, was killed while delivering a $10 order to an apartment in Rochdale Village in southeast Queens.

Chen's murder was the sixth high-profile assault of a Chinese food worker in the past five years.

"It's like killing a dog," said Councilman John Liu (D-Flushing). "The notion that an Asian person is not human is what permits two or three 16-year-olds to commit a crime of such brutality."

The killers were three teenagers - two 16-year-olds and one 18-year-old - who lured Chen to an apartment complex across the street from the Chen family's takeout business on Guy Brewer Blvd. in South Jamaica.

They ambushed him, beat him with a baseball bat and hammer and stabbed him in the lung before dumping his body in a nearby pond. When his body was found, Chen's face was almost unrecognizable. The motive: The murderers wanted money to buy sneakers.

The vicious crime provoked an outcry in the city's Chinese community, which demanded swift and decisive action by authorities to stop the attacks on Chinese food delivery workers.

The police responded by quickly apprehending Chen's attackers, allowing the community a sigh of relief.

"This is the only way to send a strong message that our system of justice works to fully protect all people," Liu said.

Fortunately, in this particularly vicious case, the message was loud and clear.

[moser]

Teary Judge Gives Teenage Killer 51 Years (http://www.nydailynews.com/front/story/311374p-266241c.html)

By WARREN WOODBERRY JR.
DAILY NEWS STAFF WRITER

He has a hard-earned reputation as the toughest judge in town. But yesterday, Robert Hanophy had to fight to keep his composure as he packed a baby-faced murderer off to prison for the next 51 years.

The judge's show of emotion in Queens Supreme Court was not for teenage killer Charles Bryant - but for the immigrant family of 18-year-old Huang Chen, the Chinese food delivery man Bryant beat and stabbed to death on Feb. 13, 2004.

"Huang Chen was so beaten up it was almost impossible to recognize him," said Hanophy, choking up and pausing several times after emotional statements from the dead teen's father and sister. "[Bryant] deserves every day of the time that I am going to give him."

Hanophy declined comment later, but one observer in the courtroom said, "The judge was holding back tears."

Bryant was sentenced to 51-1/3 years to life in prison for the senseless murder of Chen, who was making a delivery for his dad's takeout restaurant to the Rochdale Village housing complex.

Prosecutors said Bryant and his pal Nayquan Miller, both 16 at the time, had called in a food order to lure Chen and rob him to get money to buy sneakers. They pocketed $49 and killed him so he could not identify them.

The thugs used a baseball bat, hammer and knives to beat Cheng as he pleaded for his life. They later drove to Brookville Pond and dumped the body in the water.

"The crime was callous and vicious and the punishment imposed by the court ... is more than warranted," Queens District Attorney Richard Brown said. "I hope [Cheng's loved ones] find solace in the knowledge that justice has been done."

Speaking through an interpreter, the victim's father, Xing Shou Cheng, said: "My son Huang for no reason at all was killed by a couple of monsters."

Prosecutor Brad Leventhal read the scathing statement from Cheng's sister Yvonne, 22, then reminded the judge: "This defendant never once demonstrated one ounce of remorse."

Handcuffed and wearing a green bomber jacket, Bryant never looked back at his weeping mother or Cheng's family.

City Councilman John Liu (D-Flushing), who had counseled the Cheng family since the tragic nightmare began, said Bryant's sentence sends a message to anyone who would think of harming a food deliverer.

"Charles Bryant has been determined to be a cold-blooded killer," said Liu. "Today's verdict is the maximum verdict possible and the community is grateful for the verdict."

Miller is still awaiting trial.

[ahsingjai]

I had posted a similar article two weeks ago. I would like to add another aspect of Chinese restaurant in NYC.

I used to live in NYC, some, (not all) of these Chinese fastfood restaurants are operated by illegal immigrants I believe. (I was told they are Fukianese, the same people who tried to cross the border from Mexico.) I would never eat in some of these places. People look like they don't brush their hair and take a shower for long time. The chefs were squating? on the floor and chating with each others. When I ordered a pan fried noodle, I saw the chef got up and grab a handful of noodle and then grab some bean sprouts and unions with his bare hands. It was disgusting.

Most Chinese resturants are. They pay under the table.

When my aunt finally got sponsered and came to America from China, she had to work 4 dollars a hour at some resturant before she got in to a government work search program.

[applehead]

i just wanted to share an article i read on the new york
daily news the other day. i've been meaning to post
a link and i kept forgetting.

http://www.nydailynews.com/07-20-2005/news/story/329625p-281726c.html