Willie Turks

Willie Turks (February 4, 1948 - June 22, 1982) was a subway car maintenance worker who was fatally beaten by a white mob in the Gravesend section of Brooklyn, New York. Turks' death was the first of several prominent racial attacks that took place in New York City in the 1980s.
Attack
On the night of June 22, 1982, Turks and two other black New York City Transit Authority workers were accosted by three white youths after stopping at a bagel shop on their way home from work. When they tried to drive away, their car stalled and the driver was struck with a beer bottle. Turks was pulled out of the car and dragged across the street, where he was fatally beaten. Both of his companions were injured, one seriously, before managing to break away from the crowd, which had grown to 15 to 20 youths.
Prosecution
Six men were eventually charged in connection with Turks' death. Four were convicted or pleaded guilty. Of them, Gino Bova (born in 1964), described in press accounts as an unemployed weightlifter, received the longest sentence, 5 to 15 years. Bova served a total of less than eight years, as he was released on parole in January, 1991. At Bova's sentencing on 31 March 1983 Judge Sybil Hart Kooper said, "There was a lynch mob on Avenue X that night. The only thing missing was a rope and a tree."

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