Rev. Al sets march for bat victim

New York Daily News - http://www.nydailynews.com
Rev. Al sets march for bat victim
BY NANCY DILLON
DAILY NEWS STAFF WRITER
Monday, July 4th, 2005

The Rev. Al Sharpton plans today to retrace the path of a black man savagely beaten in Howard Beach last week - allegedly by white thugs who thought he didn't belong in their neighborhood.

Glenn Moore, 22, who actually lived blocks away from the scene of Wednesday's attack in Queens, remained at Jamaica Hospital in serious but stable condition with a skull fracture.

Police say Nicholas Minucci, a 19-year-old pal of the late crime boss John Gotti's grandsons, led the beating after spotting Moore and two friends on a neighborhood street at 3:30 a.m.

"We want to make it clear he lived in the neighborhood," Sharpton said.

"People who say he shouldn't have been out there at that time of night are wrong. He was 10 blocks from his own apartment," added Sharpton, who is expected to take part in a noon vigil at the hospital, then lead a walk from Moore's home to the scene of the crime.

The trip will come nearly 19 years after Sharpton headed a march through Howard Beach after a white mob chased Michael Griffith, a 23-year-old black man, to his death on the Belt Parkway.


Minucci, a high school dropout, has claimed Moore and two other young black men planned to steal a gold chain. He said Moore threatened him with a screwdriver, though cops dispute that.

Police said Moore and his two friends came to Howard Beach after a failed bid to steal a Chrysler 300 from a street in nearby Lindenwood.

But Moore's relatives noted no robbery occurred, and said the vicious assault was not connected to any crime plans.

"Glenn is in a lot of pain, so we're letting him rest and not asking any questions right now," Moore's stepfather, Thomas Eison, said yesterday. "But either way, he lived in the neighborhood and had a right to be there without being attacked."

Cops say Minucci and Anthony Ench, 21, used racial epithets during the attack, with Ench yelling, "This is what you get when you rob white boys, n----r!"

Both have been charged with hate crimes and were denied bail.

Another Minucci pal, 19-year-old Frank Agostini, has not been charged and is cooperating with the police. Agostini - who Moore told cops punched him in the shoulder, sources said - is the son of an NYPD detective.

"With the state of evidence as it exists now, it doesn't look likely he'll be charged," a law enforcement source said.