Death of Yusef Hawkins

Who is Death of Yusef Hawkins?

Yusef Hawkins was a 16-year-old African American who was shot to death on August 23, 1989 in Bensonhurst, a predominantly Italian-American working-class neighborhood in the New York City borough of Brooklyn. Hawkins and three friends were attacked by a crowd of 10 to 30 white youths, with at least seven of them wielding baseball bats. One, armed with a handgun, shot Hawkins twice in the chest, killing him.

Hawkins had gone to Bensonhurst that night with three friends to inquire about a used 1982 Pontiac automobile that was for sale. The group's attackers had been lying in wait for either black or Hispanic youths they believed were dating a neighborhood girl. Innocently, the victim, Mr. Hawkins, and his friends, walked onto the ambushers' block. After the murder of Mr. Hawkins, police said that he was not in any way involved with the neighborhood girl whose honor the killers were, wrong-mindedly, protecting.

Hawkins' death was the third killing of a black man by white mobs in New York City during the 1980s; the other two victims were Willie Turks, who was killed on June 22, 1982 in Brooklyn, and Michael Griffith, who was killed in Queens on December 20, 1986. The incident uncorked a torrent of racial tension in New York City in the ensuing days and weeks, culminating in a protest march through the neighborhood led by the Reverend Al Sharpton.