Americans in the group, Troy Banner was slightly
wounded, apparently by a gunshot, while Luther
Sylvester and Claude Stanford escaped without in-
jury. Hawkins died shortly afterward.
Police quickly arrested Mondello, Joseph Fama,
and Steven Curreri, all eighteen years of age; Charles
Stressler, twenty-one years old; Pasquale Raucci, nine-
teen; and James Patino, twenty-four. All of the men
lived in Bensonhurst. The suspects were charged with
a variety of crimes, including first-degree felony as-
sault, first-degree rioting, aggravated harassment, and
two misdemeanor counts of menacing the victims
and violating their civil rights. In addition, Mondello
and Curreri were charged with conspiracy as a result
of their previous discussions about attacking African
Americans. All but Patino were charged wtih criminal
possession of weapons—two-by-fours and golf clubs.
The most serious of the charges was the felony assault
charge, which carried a maximum penalty of fifteen
years’ imprisonment. In May, 1990, a jury convicted
Fama of being the triggerman. He was sentenced
to thirty-two years to life in prison. Two others were
convicted of felony charges, two more were convicted
of misdemeanor counts, and three were acquitted,
including Mondello. Federal civil rights charges were
not brought against Hawkins’s attackers, because New
York State courts convicted five of the defendants.
The Justice Department had a dual-prosecution pol-
icy limiting the circumstances under which a federal
prosecution could be brought following a state trial
for the same act.
Impact The killing of Yusef Hawkins represented
the latest outbreak of racial violence in a city already
tense from a spate of similar crimes during the de-
cade. The murder caused particular outrage in the
African American community, with protesters pa-
rading through Bensonhurst the weekend after the
attack. Mayor Ed Koch, running behind African
American challenger David Dinkins in the mayoral
race, criticized the city’s African Americans for in-
flaming tensions. He did not condemn the whites
of Bensonhurst for chanting racist slogans at the
marchers. Dinkins later won the election, becoming
New York City’s first African American mayor.
Further Reading
DeSantis, John.For the Color of His Skin: The Murder of
Yusuf Hawkins and the Trial of Bensonhurst.New
York: Pharos, 1991.
Car yn E. Neumann
See also African Americans; Brawley, Tawana; Cen-
tral Park jogger case; Crime; Gangs; Goetz, Bernhard;
Howard Beach incident; Racial discrimination.Health care in Canada
Definition Delivery of medical services to theCanadian Caper
Canada consolidated its public health system in the 1980’s.
Canadians expressed basic satisfaction with their health
care, preferring their system to the U.S. private-enterprise-
based health system.In the 1980’s, Canadian governments financed and
regulated a health care system operated by indepen-
dent physicians and hospitals. Each of Canada’s ten
provinces and two territories managed its own system,
which was partially funded by the federal government
and subject to principles set by the central authority.
The federal government provided health care for the
armed forces and their veterans, the Royal Canadian
Mounted Police, inmates of federal prisons, and First
Nations peoples living on reservations.Public Health Care in Canada The Canadian na-
tional health care system began to develop in 1947,
when Saskatchewan established a hospital insurance
plan controlled by the provincial government. Resi-
dents paid annual premiums entitling them to have
all basic hospital bills paid. Imitated by other prov-
inces, the practice proved so successful and popular
that the federal government in 1957 undertook to
pay half the costs. By 1961, all provinces operated
plans that collectively covered 99 percent of the pop-
ulation. In 1962, Saskatchewan introduced insur-
ance covering doctors’ fees, leading to the 1966 fed-
eral Medical Care Insurance Act; by 1971, every
province had a similar plan. In the 1980’s, two prov-
inces still collected premiums, but by and large, gen-
eral tax revenue funded the system.
Provincial plans universally covered all medically
necessary hospital and physician services, but dif-
fered on other costs. In 1984, only Saskatchewan and
Manitoba had universal drug insurance, but all prov-
inces covered those on social assistance, and all ex-
cept Prince Edward Island provided prescription
benefits for persons over sixty-five. Provisions varied
regarding payment for ambulances, cosmetic sur-
gery, eyeglasses, hearing aids, and dentistry outside446 Health care in Canada The Eighties in America