Black teen dies after being chased by group shouting racist slurs in New York

View of the Verrazano Bridge
(Image credit: iStock)

A black Staten Island teen collapsed and died of an asthma attack after being chased by an armed white group shouting racial slurs, The New York Daily News reports. Dayshen McKenzie, 16, had left his inhaler at home when he went out with six of his friends to meet a group of mostly white men behind a fast food restaurant in Mariners Harbor. Reportedly, one of the members of McKenzie's group had a dispute with someone in the other group over a girl he'd dated two years back, and then the group of mostly white men pulled a gun.

McKenzie and his friends, who were all black, bolted. "They were calling us n----rs," Harry Smith, one of McKenzie's friends, recalled. "I just heard a lot of racial slurs. They were mixed — some white, some of them were Hispanic. But nobody was black."

Subscribe to The Week

Escape your echo chamber. Get the facts behind the news, plus analysis from multiple perspectives.

SUBSCRIBE & SAVE
https://cdn.mos.cms.futurecdn.net/flexiimages/jacafc5zvs1692883516.jpg

Sign up for The Week's Free Newsletters

From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.

From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.

Sign up
Explore More
Jeva Lange

Jeva Lange was the executive editor at TheWeek.com. She formerly served as The Week's deputy editor and culture critic. She is also a contributor to Screen Slate, and her writing has appeared in The New York Daily News, The Awl, Vice, and Gothamist, among other publications. Jeva lives in New York City. Follow her on Twitter.