HS Coach Cuffed In Bat Attack On Fans
By Jamie Schram
April 27, 2007 -- A bat-swinging Manhattan high-school baseball coach is facing felony assault charges for his alleged role in the beating of two students cheering for the opposing team - one of whom suffered a broken jaw.Ernest Cruz, 34, a volunteer with the Norman Thomas HS boys varsity team, was freed without bail at his arraignment in Brooklyn Criminal Court yesterday, two days after his squad creamed Fort Hamilton HS 10-5 in an exhibition game that ended in a bloody brawl.
The two Fort Hamilton student spectators who were briefly hospitalized as a result of the melee told police that Cruz - who is not a Department of Education employee - went on a swinging spree with a metal bat, hitting them in the face and torso before fleeing in his car.
They also reported being accosted by as many as 20 Norman Thomas players and parents at the Fort Hamilton Athletic Field in Bay Ridge after exchanging "angry words," police said.
"The coach asked me if we wanted to fight him. The coach!" Raphael Mercedes, 18, told The Post through a mouth full of rubber bands and wires holding his busted jaw in place. "They came up to fight us because we were cheering."
Another student, David Gracia, 18, suffered a swollen face and a cut to the back of his head.
Cruz said only, "I was attacked."
'Coach beat us with bat'
Students say they were clubbed over cheering; teacher aide rips 'hooligans'
BY ALISON GENDAR, KERRY BURKE and MICHAEL WHITEDAILY NEWS STAFF WRITERS
An assistant baseball coach at a Manhattan high school allegedly clubbed two teens at a rival school with a baseball bat after an exhibition game, authorities said yesterday.
"The coach hit me with a metal bat," said Raphael Mercedes, 18, a senior at Fort Hamilton High School in Bay Ridge, Brooklyn.
"It was stupid," Mercedes said, speaking through clenched teeth because his jaw was busted and had to be wired shut by doctors. "They won the game. It was all over cheering."
Ernest Cruz, a coach at Norman Thomas High School on Manhattan's East Side, allegedly attacked the students at Fort Hamilton HS on Tuesday after they cheered for one of their team's pitchers.
"Watch what you say or we can throw down right here!" Cruz yelled at the students before clubbing them, Mercedes said.
Cruz cracked Mercedes in the face, breaking his jaw, and clubbed David Gracia over the head, cutting the 18-year-old's face and neck, authorities said.
Mercedes said players on Norman Thomas High's baseball team also beat him and Gracia.
But Cruz, 34, denied starting the fight and insisted yesterday he was only defending himself after Norman Thomas High won the scrimmage by a score of 10-5.
"I didn't have a bat. I didn't have anything," said Cruz, who also works as a teacher's aide at the E. 33rd St. school. "They attacked me."
Read more...
