Last Wednesday, a man was arrested in Union Square after allegedly attacking three people in broad daylight in what appears to be a racially-motivated attack. Victim Jeffery Babbitt, 62, died Monday morning at Bellevue Hospital after being declared brain dead over the weekend. Suspect Martin Redrick, a.k.a. Lashawn Marten, said there was no racial component to the incident: “I’ve punched white people. I’ve punched brown people. I’ve punched Hispanic people,” he told the Daily News during an interview in the prison ward in Bellevue Hospital.. “So what? I don’t target anyone.”
Redrick, who has a history of mental illness (including schizophrenia), was hanging out by the chess tables in the park last week when he became angry, possibly because no one wanted to play him; sources told us he jumped up and shouted, "I hate white people," then struck Babbitt. "He said 'The next white person who walks by, I'm going to [expletive],'" one female witness told WCBS.
Redrick's family told the Times this week that he has had a complicated relationship with race. “Martin did not like authority and as we were growing up, the only people with authority were white people,” his brother Joseph Redrick told them. “A lot of times that problem with authority was transferred to white people.”
Among other things, Redrick bragged about getting away with previous crimes: “You think I’m afraid of these charges?” he asked. “I punched a police officer in Newburgh in front of a crowd of people and all his colleagues and I was out of jail in 168 hours,” he said. Redrick served six months in prison for that incident.
He has been charged with felony assault for the Union Square incident, but new charges are expected to be added next week. He was cagey about answering questions about Babbitt: “Where’s the autopsy report? Where’s the death certificate?” he asked. “You’ve got to know when to fold ’em and know when to hold ’em. I’m saving those details for trial.”
