Jon Lester at his trial.
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1 Dead As Hate-Filled Crowd Attacks
By LIZ GOFF
Howard Beach -DEC. 20, 1986: Three young black men with car trouble were the victims of a savage attack that left one dead and has brought shame to a south Queens community now branded as racist.
Michael Griffith, Cedric Sandiford and Timothy Grimes hadn’t planned on getting stuck in Howard Beach just after midnight on Dec. 20.
The three black men hadn’t planned on the Buick they were riding in to break down on an isolated, marshy section of Cross Bay Boulevard. And surely no one expected that the 23-year-old Griffith would be forced to run for his life – and lose it.
The driver stayed with the car while Griffith, Sandiford and Grimes walked north on the boulevard looking for a pay phone or a mechanic. The men stopped at New Park Pizza, a restaurant at 156-71 Cross Bay Blvd., where they were told by a man behind the counter that no phone was available for them to use. Hungry, they ordered slices and sat discussing what to do.
When Griffith and his companions walked out of the restaurant, they were accosted by more than a dozen white men shouting, “Nigger, you don’t belong here!” The gang attacked the three men, beating them with bats and fists.
Jon Lester, 17, a mobster-wannabe, had riled up the gang at a local party and led them to the restaurant after learning the “intruders” were there. “Let’s go kill them,” Lester told the crowd.
Griffith and Sandiford, 36, managed to bolt from the gang. They ran north and then west, with the gang at their heels. When the gang cornered the two men at the edge of the Belt Parkway they cried, “God don’t kill me!” But the blows kept coming, as the two men managed to slip through a three-foot hole in the parkway fence – where they split up.
Sandiford ran west, Griffith east. Sandiford got about three blocks away before the gang caught up with him. He screamed for help as the teens delivered blow after blow.
Griffith sought escape by running across the Belt. He was struck by a passing car, his body catapulted 25 feet into the air – landing almost an exit away from the point of impact.
As news of the attacks blared from media reports, a stunned city awoke to a climate of racial rage. In just hours, Howard Beach was transformed from a neighborhood to an incident.
Justice Is Served
Police rounded up four local teens connected with the incident. Jon Lester, 16, Jason Ladone, 16, Scott Kern, 18, and Thomas Gucciardo, 17, said that Grimes pulled a knife outside the restaurant – forcing them to defend themselves. Gucciardo was later cleared of the charges and released.
A grand jury handed down indictments Feb. 7, 1987, charging Lester, Kern and Ladone with murder, manslaughter and assault. A fourth teen, Michael Pirone,16, was also indicted.
Lester and Kern were later convicted and sentenced to 15-30 years in prison. Pirone was acquitted of the charges, in a move that sparked a new round of protests and outcries.
In all, 12 members of the gang were charged in the attacks. Two others were acquitted, one turned state’s witness and was sentenced to six months in jail and those remaining were ordered to perform 200 hours each of community service.
When Judge Thomas Demakos sentenced Lester, Ladone and Kern, Lester responded by saluting the judge.
The move prompted Demakos to remark, “Four years after the incident, these defendants do not comprehend the evil they did that night, or appreciate the harm they did to the entire city.”
