Newark triple murder may be anti-gay hate crime

Victims' friends driven to despair over alleged police, media cover-up

By LOU CHIBBARO JR. | Washington Blade

A close friend of three college students who were shot to death execution style in a Newark, N.J., schoolyard in August said the students planned to join him in attending a black Gay Pride event in Queens, N.Y., the day following their deaths.

News of the students' plans to attend the Aug. 5 event at New York City's Riis Park Beach surfaced after a New Jersey gay group released a letter last week calling on Newark authorities to investigate the murders as possible anti-gay hate crimes.

The murder of the three students and the shooting of a fourth student, who is recovering from a gunshot wound to the head, shocked Newark's citizens and became the subject of international news coverage.

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