Second arrest in hate-crime slaying

NEW YORK – “So I killed someone – that makes me a bad guy?”

Those were the first words Keith Phoenix uttered to detectives Friday when they pulled him out of an apartment in Yonkers and charged him with the Brooklyn hate-crime murder of an Ecuadorean immigrant he mistook for being gay, according to a law enforcement official.

Phoenix, 28, made headlines Thursday when police released video showing him laughing it up at a bridge toll booth – just 19 minutes after allegedly using a baseball bat to pummel Jose Sucuzhanay about the body and head on Dec. 7.

Just before 2:30 a.m. Friday, police, tipped to his whereabouts, showed up at the Yonkers apartment of an elderly woman who had helped raise Phoenix’s girlfriend in a group home. The woman, police sources said, had apparently let him in on Thursday night, fearful he would hurt her if she refused.

They found him standing behind the door of the bathroom, Police Commissioner Ray Kelly said, and arrested him. Unlike his alleged accomplice, Hakim Scott, Phoenix showed no remorse, police said.

The victim and his brother, Romel, were walking home when Phoenix and Scott, 25, got out of their sport utility vehicle, police said. Wrongly believing the brothers were gay, the attackers shouted anti-gay and anti-Hispanic slurs, police said.

Then, police said, Scott smashed a bottle over Sucuzhanay’s head and chased his brother, while Phoenix grabbed a bat from the vehicle and beat Jose Sucuzhanay.

The suspects then drove off in the SUV, police said.

Scott was arrested Wednesday near his Bronx home, charged with second-degree murder and made a full confession, police said.

Phoenix is unemployed and spent a lot of his time playing video games, the law enforcement official said.