Under an elliptical moon, the sight of an illegal Mexican immigrant alone with a 15-year-old hometown girl seemed to push the beer-fueled high school football players into deadly violence.
“Isn’t it a little late for you guys to be out?” one teen reportedly asked Luis Eduardo Ramirez, 25, and the girl as they walked near a park after 11 p.m. one Saturday last month. “Get your Mexican boyfriend out of here!”
Ethnic slurs ricocheted in the night, echoing what many have muttered for years in this crumbling mountainside town that was once the thriving jewel of Pennsylvania’s coal country. Then, fists flew, and one teen, an honor student, reportedly delivered a skull-shattering kick to the head, killing Ramirez.
This pocket of blue-collar America, where big-band musicians Tommy and Jimmy Dorsey got their start, is spinning in the ugly vortex of the nation’s racially charged war over illegal Immigration. Federal officials have launched an investigation into last month’s murder to determine if it is part of a rising trend of anti-Latino hate crimes around the country.
“We are reaping what we, as a nation, have [sown],” said Mark Potok, spokesman for the Southern Poverty Law Center, which tracks hate crimes nationwide.
Feds helping case With Mexicans the focus of anger over illegal Immigration, reported hate crimes against Latinos increased to 576 in 2006, or 25 percent more than three years before, according to the most recent FBI report on such incidents. Latino activists argue the trend has only gotten worse as the debate rages over Immigration reform. In Illinois, anecdotal evidence suggests hate crimes have risen since 2006, when there were six, according to the Mexican American Legal Defense and Educational Fund.
Though no federal charges have been filed in the Shenandoah case, the Justice Department’s civil rights division is aiding local prosecutors, a department spokeswoman said.
The Schuylkill County district attorney has charged Brandon Piekarsky, 16, and Colin Walsh, 17, as adults with murder and “ethnic intimidation,” which covers hate crimes. Derrick Donchak, 18, has been charged with aggravated assault and ethnic intimidation. Another 17-year-old faces the same charges in juvenile court. All have pleaded not guilty.
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August 13th, 2008 at 10:15 pm
This is DISGUSTING. I’m appalled by this wonton act of violence. I’m also glad that my mother and father aren’t alive to see the very same hatred that they faced (growing up) resurface in America. It’s sad because they thought that this type of “ugliness” would never return. I hold all of the anti-immigrant, right-wing media responsible for this young man’s death, spewing all manner of hate speach across the air/radio waves.