*A black teenager from Staten Island, NY collapsed and died from an asthma attack he suffered while running for his life from a racist mob.
Dayshen McKenzie, 16, was fleeing what witnesses described as a mostly white crew shouting racial slurs and waving a gun, the New York Daily News reports. According to Diane Fatigati, a Good Samaritan who ran to McKenzie’s aid, one of the pursuers shouted, “I’m gonna shoot you, ni**er.”
“To me, it’s murder,” said Fatigati, an ex-NYPD officer and 9/11 responder. “They were chasing him — that’s a crime. You’re hunting them because they’re black … You’re calling them a ni**er.”
According to the Daily News, the chase last Friday was rooted in an ongoing beef between one of McKenzie’s friends and a member of the other group over a girl.
Fatigati said the group chasing McKenzie and his friends consisted of young white males and one Hispanic male. She said two of the cars in the pursuit bore Pennsylvania plates. No arrests were made and no charges filed in the week since the incident.
A police source said McKenzie’s friends didn’t mention the racial slur when cops interviewed them after his death. Hate crime investigators are expected to interview the witnesses again after the Daily News inquired about the case.
