Michael Griffith (manslaughter victim)
One African-American man was killed and another was beaten in Howard Beach, Queens, New York, in a racially charged incident in December 1986 that heightened racial tensions in New York City.
The dead man was 23-year-old Michael Griffith, who was born on March 2, 1963 in Trinidad, immigrated to the United States in 1973, and lived in Crown Heights, Brooklyn. He was killed after being hit by a car on December 20, 1986, as he was chased onto a highway by a mob of white youths who had beaten him and his friends. Griffith's death was the second of three infamous racially motivated killings of black men by white mobs in New York City in the 1980s. The other victims were Willie Turks in 1982 and Yusuf Hawkins in 1989.
Late on the night of Friday, December 19, 1986, four black men, Michael Griffith, 23; Cedric Sandiford, 36; and Curtis Sylvester and Timothy Grimes, both 20, were riding in a car when it broke down in a deserted stretch of Cross Bay Boulevard near the Broad Channel neighborhood of Queens. Three of the men walked about three miles north to seek help in Howard Beach, a mostly white community, while Sylvester remained behind to watch the car. They argued with some white teens who were on their way to a party, then left.
By 12:30 a.m. on the 20th, the men reached the New Park Pizzeria, near the intersection of Cross Bay Boulevard and 157th Avenue. After a quick meal the men left the pizzeria at 12:40 A.M. and were confronted by a group of white men, including the group they had earlier confronted. Racial slurs were exchanged and a fight ensued. Sandiford and Griffith were seriously beaten; Grimes escaped unharmed. While trying to evade his attackers, Griffith ran in front of a moving car driven by the son of a police officer, and was killed. His body was found on Shore Parkway at 1:03 A.M.
Griffith's death provoked strong outrage and immediate condemnation by then-Mayor of New York Ed Koch, who referred to the case as the "No. 1 case in the city". Two days after the murder, on December 22, three local teenagers, Jon Lester, Scott Kern, and Jason Ladone, students at John Adams High School, were arrested. They were charged with second-degree murder. The driver of the car that struck Griffith, 24-year-old Dominick Blum, was not charged with any crime; a May 1987 grand jury did not return criminal charges against him.
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