New York police officers now believe that the murder of a female jogger was driven by race, according to sources.
Two informants maintained that Chanel Lewis, the murder suspect, told police officers that he hated the majority-white neighborhood that the victim came from, reports the New York Post.
“I don’t like those people over there,” Lewis, 20, told officers, according to two individuals. Lewis, who is black, lived in the poverty-ridden neighborhoods of East New York and Brownsville.
Lewis declined to speak with a white officer, but was more than willing to speak with a black detective. Lewis reportedly waived his Miranda rights and told the detective that he “hit” and “choked” Karina Vetrano.
“I was angry. I had some issues at home. I just lost it. When I saw her, I just hit her and kept hitting her. I hit her and choked her,’’ sources claim Lewis told officers.
Vetrano was strangled to death during a jog near her home Aug. 2. Her father and attending law enforcement officers found her body about 15 feet from the trail. She was lying face down.
“Right now, there’s evidence of strangulation, asphyxiation,” New York City Police Department’s chief of detectives, Robert Boyce, said to reporters at the time.
The Lewis family spoke out against the charges. His half-sister described him as an harmless person; she also claimed that she believes the police are framing him.
“The cops need to go do their job and find the real killer and take my brother out of jail. He would never kill anybody, much less a woman. He loves females,” she said to WABC. “He’s a kind, gentle, loving person. He would never take another person’s life.”
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