TK Talk: What (if any) were the long-term effects or repercussions of the "dotbusters" incidents against Indian-Americans in NJ during the 1980s?

New Jersey's Dotbusters

According to Elizabeth Gutierrez (1), in the 9-month period from June 1987 to Feb 1988, >15 Indians were brutally attacked in and around Jersey City, New Jersey. A group calling itself 'Dotbusters' sent a letter to the The Jersey Journal in August 1987 stating their intention to force Indians out of this community, by violence if necessary (see below from 1).

'If I'm walking down the street and I see a Hindu and the setting is right, I will just hit him or her'

The shocking 1987 attacks on Navroze Mody (on Sep 27, 1987 in Hoboken, New Jersey), which left him dead, and on Kaushal Saran (on Sep 24, 1987 in Jersey City, New Jersey, which left him with permanent neurological damage, didn't lead to appropriate punishments for the culprits. Mody's killers were convicted for merely aggravated assault and simple assault (2) while Saran's attackers were acquitted (3, 4). In fact, even Mody's father's complaint that the police didn't do enough to ensure his son's protection (2) was dismissed by the 3rd Circuit of the US Court of Appeals.

One of the most shocking and certainly flagrant aspects of these beatings and killing is that a mere 2 weeks earlier, on Sep 12, 1987, two of the brothers convicted on the aggravated assault charge for Mody's killing had apparently beaten two other Indians, Stevens Institute of Technology students Syed Hasan and Vikas Aggarwal. As the 3rd Circuit of the US Court of Appeals itself notes (from 2, emphasis mine),

'On September 12, 1987, two Asian Indian students from Stevens Institute of Technology (Stevens) in Hoboken, Syed Hasan (Hasan) and Vikas Aggarwal (Aggarwal), were walking to a restaurant named East L.A., two blocks from Stevens, for dinner. At 9:00 p.m., as they were about to enter the restaurant, someone stepped in front of them and stole Hasan's umbrella. Hasan turned and saw a man holding a baseball bat and another running away with the umbrella. When Aggarwal stepped forward and asked for the umbrella back, he was punched in the face by one of the men. About this time, an unknown person hit Hasan on his left side with a metal bar.

Hasan and Aggarwal entered the restaurant to escape their assailants. Aggarwal was bleeding profusely from his mouth. From inside the restaurant, he and Hasan could not see whether their assailants had left the area. They decided to walk back to Stevens and call security. Hasan only got as far as the curb when he was hit from behind with a baseball bat and fell into the road. Two men then picked Hasan up bodily, slammed him against the door of an adjoining store and punched and kicked him for about five minutes. Hasan ran back to Stevens alone. None of the men tried to rob Hasan. In the meantime, Aggarwal had also been attacked and struck senseless. He too was not robbed during the attack and, after the Hoboken police found him, he was taken to St. Mary's Hospital.

Mr. Ivan Sales (Sales), a man of Hispanic origin employed at a nearby restaurant called "Chicken Galore," saw the attack and called to the men beating Hasan and Aggarwal to stop. In response, three of the attackers ran over to Sales and assaulted and robbed him. The attackers fled as police responded to the scene.

After receiving medical treatment for their injuries, Hasan and Aggarwal gave signed statements to the Hoboken police about the attacks. While Hasan said he would recognize "the tall chap" if Hasan saw him again, neither Hasan nor Aggarwal could identify the attackers. Sales was able to identify two of them as "Chinito" and "Chinito's" brother. App. at 372-73. Hasan and Aggarwal were not asked whether they wanted to file complaints against their attackers. After they gave the police their respective dorm hall phone numbers and addresses so the police could reach them if needed, they left thinking that there was nothing further for them to do in order to press charges. Later Hasan did contact the Hoboken police to give them the phone number of his uncle's house in Queens, New York where he was staying while he recuperated from the attack.

Three days after the assaults, Detective Cahill learned that William Acevedo, also known as "Chinito," "was telling his friends in Hoboken High School how he had beat up two Indians and the Chicken man." Id. at 371. On September 17, 1987, William and Luis Acevedo went to the Hoboken police station. Detective Cahill reported that he then called Hasan and his roommate, Aggarwal, but Hasan said he did not want to file a complaint. The phone number Detective Cahill said he called was not the phone number of either Hasan or Aggarwal, and Hasan and Aggarwal were not roommates. Hasan and Aggarwal said they never told the Hoboken police that they did not want to press charges. Indeed, Aggarwal said he was never contacted by the police after he reported the incident. Hasan testified that he once received a message at his dormitory that the police had called and would call back, but they never did. Detective Cahill did contact Sales. Contrary to earlier statements, Sales now said that he did not want to file a complaint.

About a week after the attack, Peter Van Schaick (Van Schaick), a friend of Hasan's family and an attorney practicing in Hoboken, went to the Hoboken Police Department to talk with Lieutenant Kiely upon learning from Hasan that the police had taken no action in the matter. Lieutenant Kiely explained that no action had been taken because none of the victims had filed a complaint, but he admitted that he could legally pick up the attackers without awaiting a filed complaint from the victims. This explanation surprised Van Schaick since Hasan and Aggarwal had told him they did want the police to press charges. Van Schaick also told Lieutenant Kiely that he suspected the Hoboken police were not pressing the matter because the victims were Asian Indians. Later, another member of the Hoboken police force told Van Schaick that gangs and the "dot busting" problem were not high on the police department's priority list'

In other words, future violence and certainly Mody's killing was likely preventable if police had acted expeditiously in apprehending Hasan and Aggarwal's attackers. Why didn't this happen? Institutional indifference, bias? All these years later, we each have to fill the blanks ourselves as per our disposition. Violence to Mody and Saran was preventable because not being held accountable for the Sep 12 student beatings sent a strong, univocal message to those perpetrators that their open season mayhem on the Indian-American community in their neck of the woods was, if not officially sanctioned, somehow allowed.

Community Activism, Legal Repercussions And Consequences Of New Jersey Dotbuster Attacks In The 1980s

Such concerted attacks within a short time period caused the Indian American community in this area to coalesce around this issue. Following numerous public protests (5, 6), the US Justice Department became involved (7) and only then did local city officials begin to pursue a more aggressive approach against these crimes.

These 'dotbuster' incidents may have played a role in the passing of the bias crimes law (ethnic intimidation law) in August 1990 by the New Jersey State Assembly or so asserts the senior US Senator from New Jersey, Bob Menendez (8).

However, though frequency of such attacks definitely abated from their 1980s highs, hate crimes against Indian Americans in this region of New Jersey haven't stopped.

In June 2010, 49-year old Divyendu Sinha, a 49-year old Stevens Institute of Technology professor was savagely beaten and killed in Old Bridge Township, New Jersey, ~30 miles south of Jersey City, while he was out for a walk with his two sons near his home (9). At that time, the Indian population in this predominantly white town of 70,000 had increased to ~6%. Two of the 5 accused high school students, though tried as adults, were finally acquitted of all the most serious charges and instead only found guilty of simple assault, 'a 4th degree crime that carries the presumption of non-incarceration' (10). One was sentenced to >12 years in prison (11), another to 7 years for aggravated manslaughter (12) and the fifth to 15 years (13).
As recently as July 2015, 57 year old Rohit Patel was apparently the victim of a hate crime attack (beating) in North Brunswick, New Jersey (14), ~32 miles south of Jersey City.

Indian Population Demographic Changes In Jersey City, New Jersey post-1980s

Inexplicably, dotbuster attacks appear to not have prevented Indian immigration into this area. Indian population in Jersey City has expanded steadily, regardless of these attacks. While some have speculated that Indians' tendency to cluster spatially both residentially and in business in this area made them more visible as targets for the 1980s attacks (1), it may be that counter-intuitively, the same tendency helped sustain their continuing immigration into this region. Strength is in numbers after all.

In 1992, the New York Times (15) quotes the Census Bureau as stating that 'During the 1980's, Jersey City's Asian Indian population increased from 2,303 to 7,361’.
By 1989, it had apparently increased to 15000 (16), a >2X increase in just 2 years, ~6.5% of the total.
While Jersey City Indians numbered 27111 in 2010 (17), representing 10.9% of the overall Jersey City population, their number further increased to 27603 by 2013 (18), a 1.8% increase over 3 years.

Bibliography

1. Gutierrez, Elizabeth. "THE-DOTBUSTER-ATTACKS: HATE CRIME AGAINST ASIAN INDIANS IN JERSEY CITY, NEW JERSEY." Middle States Geographer 5 (1996): 30-38. http://msaag.org/wp-content/uplo...

2. 959 F.2d 461

3. New York Times, Feb 11, 1993. 3 Are Acquitted on a Count In Indian Physician's Beating

4. Hudson Reporter, Ricardo Kaulessar, Mar 5, 2009. ‘DotBusters’ victim looks back Now in Oklahoma; racial attack nearly killed JC resident in 1987

5. New York Times, Oct 8, 1987. Jersey City Indian Community Protests Rash of Racial Attacks

6. New York Times, Dec 16, 1987. Protesters Want Four Tried As Adults in Killing of Indian

7. New York Times, Oct 12, 1987. In Jersey City, Indians Protest Violence

8. Menendez Letter To TIME On Joel Stein's Essay About Indian-Americans In NJ | U.S. Senator Bob Menendez of New Jersey

9. Jersey Journal, Stephen Sterling, July 1, 2010. http://blog.nj.com/ledgerlocal/p...

10. Jersey Journal, Sue Epstein, Oct 1, 2013. Acquittals in Old Bridge beating death spark tears of relief, tears of frustration

11. Jersey Journal, Sue Epstein, Apr 3, 2014. Last of 5 charged in fatal Old Bridge beating case sentenced to 12 years in prison

12. News12, Oct 18, 2013. 3 sentenced in fatal beating of Old Bridge man

13. Jersey Journal, Sue Epstein, June 12, 2014. Appeals court upholds Old Bridge teen's 15-year prison term in Old Bridge fatal beating