Hide The Tallit, Stow That Crucifix Safely Inside Your Collar

“Perverse” is when gangs use rosary beads to identify other gang members:

The slaying of an immigrant dishwasher in a Queens subway station may be part of a larger pattern of gang attacks, police sources told Newsday.

Jose Nava, 19, was attacked in the early morning of Sept. 3, Labor Day, as he headed home to the Bronx from his job at a Greek restaurant in Astoria.

The Mexican immigrant, whom police initially identified as Jose Sierra, was set upon in the mezzanine of the Broadway station by up to six gang members who beat, stabbed and shot him before fleeing.

The suspects — who police sources said are members of Los Traviesos, Spanish for “The Troublemakers” — saw that Nava was wearing rosary beads and mistook the religious items for his membership in a gang, as some gangs wear such beads, the sources said.

Nava had no criminal record and was not in a gang, police said. He spent his days working 11-hour shifts, sending whatever money he could back to his family in Puebla, Mexico.