KTLA News
August 1, 2011
NORCO, Calif. (KTLA) -- A family claims they were beaten by federal agents during a 'botched' drug raid and now, they're fighting for their rights to stay in the U.S.
On July 19, agents with the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) Homeland Security Investigations (HSE) went to Carmen Bonilla's residence on Corona Avenue in Norco, armed with a search warrant related to a drug-trafficking investigation.
Carmen Bonilla and seven other relatives, including a two-year-old and a 17-year-old were at the house when the agents showed up.
Sign up for KTLA 5 Breaking News Email Alerts
Bonilla claims they were terrorized by the agents who allegedly forced them to lay face down on the ground with guns pointed at their heads.
In addition, the family says they were beaten, kicked, scratched and yelled at by the agents.
ICE has not confirmed or denied the discovery of any drugs, but the family says no drugs were found.
During the incident, agents learned that eight of the home's occupants were in the country illegally and now they're fighting deportation.
The Coalition for Humane Immigration Rights of Los Angeles has since stepped in to help.
The family now has an immigration lawyer -- Jessica Dominguez -- who will be representing them in court on Tuesday to fight deportation charges.
The allegations made against the agents are being investigated by ICE's Office of Professional Responsibility.
http://www.ktla.com/news/landing/ktla-drug-raid-deportation,0,6097566.story
Showing posts with label Immigrants Beatings. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Immigrants Beatings. Show all posts
Wednesday, August 3, 2011
Monday, January 17, 2011
2 more North Shore teens go behind bars for assualt of Mexican immigrant
By Frank Donnelly
SILive.com
January 15, 2011
STATEN ISLAND, N.Y. — Two more North Shore teens were sent to prison yesterday in connection with last year’s vicious beating of a Mexican immigrant in Port Richmond.
Ethan Cave, 16, of Mariners Harbor, and William Marcano, 18, of Elm Park, were each sentenced to one and one-third to four years behind bars for attacking Rodulfo Olmedo, a baker, on April 5, while allegedly shouting anti-Mexican slurs.
The beating was among a number of assaults committed against Mexican immigrants last year in Port Richmond, sparking a concentrated police presence in the area. A grand jury, however, declined to indict the defendants on hate-crime charges.
Last week, Rolston Hopson, 18, of Elm Park, was sentenced to six years behind bars for his role in the attack.
The fourth and final defendant in the case, Tyrone Goodman, an 18-year-old Elm Park resident, is scheduled to be sentenced Thursday. He, too, will receive one and one-third to four years.
Last month, the suspects pleaded guilty in state Supreme Court, St. George — Hopson to first-degree robbery; Goodman and Marcano to second-degree robbery, and Cave to attempted first-degree robbery — a spokesman for District Attorney Daniel Donovan said yesterday.
According to court documents, the four assailants allegedly converged on Olmedo early in the morning, calling him “an [expletive] Mexican.”
Hopson beat him with a wooden stick and Marcano also had a stick, court papers said. The suspects then stole Olmedo’s wallet, $300 and cell phone, before fleeing.
Olmedo, then 25, suffered a fractured skull and other injuries.
Hopson and Goodman allegedly told police that prior to the assault, they had fought with a group of Hispanics, including Olmedo. The quartet retaliated a few minutes later when they saw Olmedo alone.
Cave and Marcano were sentenced yesterday as youthful offenders, meaning the convictions won’t go on their records. Goodman, likewise, could be sentenced next week as a youthful offender.
http://www.silive.com/northshore/index.ssf/2011/01/2_more_north_shore_teens_go_be.html
SILive.com
January 15, 2011
STATEN ISLAND, N.Y. — Two more North Shore teens were sent to prison yesterday in connection with last year’s vicious beating of a Mexican immigrant in Port Richmond.
Ethan Cave, 16, of Mariners Harbor, and William Marcano, 18, of Elm Park, were each sentenced to one and one-third to four years behind bars for attacking Rodulfo Olmedo, a baker, on April 5, while allegedly shouting anti-Mexican slurs.
The beating was among a number of assaults committed against Mexican immigrants last year in Port Richmond, sparking a concentrated police presence in the area. A grand jury, however, declined to indict the defendants on hate-crime charges.
Last week, Rolston Hopson, 18, of Elm Park, was sentenced to six years behind bars for his role in the attack.
The fourth and final defendant in the case, Tyrone Goodman, an 18-year-old Elm Park resident, is scheduled to be sentenced Thursday. He, too, will receive one and one-third to four years.
Last month, the suspects pleaded guilty in state Supreme Court, St. George — Hopson to first-degree robbery; Goodman and Marcano to second-degree robbery, and Cave to attempted first-degree robbery — a spokesman for District Attorney Daniel Donovan said yesterday.
According to court documents, the four assailants allegedly converged on Olmedo early in the morning, calling him “an [expletive] Mexican.”
Hopson beat him with a wooden stick and Marcano also had a stick, court papers said. The suspects then stole Olmedo’s wallet, $300 and cell phone, before fleeing.
Olmedo, then 25, suffered a fractured skull and other injuries.
Hopson and Goodman allegedly told police that prior to the assault, they had fought with a group of Hispanics, including Olmedo. The quartet retaliated a few minutes later when they saw Olmedo alone.
Cave and Marcano were sentenced yesterday as youthful offenders, meaning the convictions won’t go on their records. Goodman, likewise, could be sentenced next week as a youthful offender.
http://www.silive.com/northshore/index.ssf/2011/01/2_more_north_shore_teens_go_be.html
Sunday, September 13, 2009
Brutal beating of immigrant, charges against six boys bring alarms in Lynn
‘Look how they left him’
Brutal beating of immigrant, charges against six boys bring alarms in Lynn
By Maria Sacchetti
Boston Globe Staff
September 11, 2009
LYNN - Damian Merida was the seventh of 11 children born in a thatched-roof house with a dirt floor in Guatemala. He was just a boy when he left, following his brothers to the United States because their village had little food, no medicine, no work, and no future.
All of that he found here, in an immigrant enclave of Lynn. Everyone in his family knew how far they had come.
Then, in the middle of a warm summer day on July 22, the family’s vision of America was lost in a blur of bricks, rocks, bottles, and sticks.
As Merida slept under a shade tree in a Lynn park, a mob of children allegedly descended on the 30-year-old landscaper and savagely beat him. The vicious attack is provoking questions and inciting fear throughout this city and beyond, because police say he was targeted because of his ethnicity.
His alleged attackers are six boys age 11 to 14; most were on championship sports teams, and one is an immigrant himself, from West Africa, the Globe has confirmed.
Police are investigating whether the same group was responsible for an attack in the area two weeks before on another man from Guatemala, and are urging the victim to come forward.
Once stocky and strong, Merida is now in Tewksbury Hospital, learning to walk and feed himself. Family members say he has permanent brain damage and will never live and work on his own. Sometimes he suffers from long crying fits. His family is suddenly tens of thousands of dollars in debt.
“Look how they left him,’’ his 66-year-old mother, Teofila Merida, said in Spanish, covering her deeply lined face with hands wrinkled from decades of picking coffee and husks of corn. She stared at a photograph of her son in the hospital, his eyes swollen shut, his face covered in tubes, his legs wrapped in bandages. “I can’t understand why they would have done it.’’
The boys are facing multiple assault charges, including armed assault with intent to murder, and a civil rights violation because they allegedly targeted him as an immigrant. Authorities would not confirm the boys’ names because they are minors, and juvenile court proceedings are private.
Merida family members and the Daily Item of Lynn said the boys pleaded not guilty and all but one is free pending trial. Lynn public schools suspended four of the boys indefinitely, which they will appeal today, said Rick Iarrobino, a school official. The oldest boy, age 14, is still in state custody.
The sixth boy’s status is unclear. He attended St. Mary’s Junior-Senior High School last year but he did not re-enroll in the fall, the principal said.
Despite their anonymity, the boys are under heavy scrutiny as the city searches for answers. The Anti-Defamation League and the Latino Professional Network condemned the attack this week. Doubts about the attackers’ motive have also surfaced: Frances Martinez, executive director of the nonprofit La Vida Inc., said she did not believe Merida was targeted because of his ethnicity, as crime is widespread in Lynn.
But acting Police Chief Kevin Coppinger said witnesses said the boys targeted Merida because he is Latino. He urged immigrants to report crimes to the police even if they, like Merida, are here illegally and said the police do not generally ask about the immigration status of victims.
“The attack to us was a very serious incident, very out of the ordinary,’’ Coppinger said.
At least five of the six boys had won recognition in their community. Four were on Pop Warner football teams that were among the best in the state last year. In online photographs, one team is pictured being praised in a ceremony at City Hall. After the attack, the boys were allowed to play until the Merida family and others expressed outrage.
One of the boys is a soccer star from West Africa. He is pictured on the Internet with a medal around his neck. He is still playing in a private league, according to his coach, who said he believes the boy is innocent. The coach spoke on condition of anonymity.
Five boys are under age 14 and cannot be tried as adults, but they could be committed to the Department of Youth Services until they turn 18. The 14-year-old could be in DYS until he turns 21, said Stephen O’Connell, spokesman for the Essex district attorney’s office. The district attorney’s office is reviewing whether to try him as an adult.
Merida was not much older than the boys who are accused of attacking him when he decided to move to the United States. But he had a starkly different life.
He was born in a rural village near San Sebastian. His family slept in one large room, scrubbed clothes by hand, carried water for washing and cooking from the river, and cooked over an open fire, according to family members.
His mother, a quick, bubbly woman, said she raised them largely alone because their father, now dead, refused to recognize them all. Sometimes all they had to eat was egg soup seasoned with chili peppers.
None of the children spent more than a few months in school.
By age 11, Damian Merida worked in the fields. At 16, he followed his older relatives to the United States. He crossed the border illegally and took cash-only jobs in Massachusetts landscaping, cleaning, and cooking to send money home to his mother, who later joined them here.
In the United States, his family said, Merida blossomed from a skinny youth to a strong, handsome man. A skilled cook, he delighted his family by breaking two eggs at once, one in each hand, and frying them one-handed in the skillet.
Though still poor, he lives with other family members in a large house in Lynn, with an electric stove, a microwave oven, and plenty to eat.
But relatives said Merida also developed a vice: drinking alcohol. It started years ago when a girlfriend broke up with him, though family members said he had dramatically cut back in recent months.
Instead, he was attending an evangelical church with them, and talked about getting married. “I want to get my life in order,’’ his mother recalled him saying.
On July 22, he could not find work and decided to have a couple of beers and take a walk to Robert McManus Field, a wide, grassy park about a mile from his house, relatives said. Police said he settled down for a nap near a graffiti-strewn embankment just below the train tracks.
At 2:49 p.m., police said, someone called 911.
At Massachusetts General Hospital, where he spent the first few weeks, family and friends said he was barely recognizable. He cannot precisely remember the attack, friends and relatives say, but suffers violent flashbacks.
“Sometimes he’ll say, ‘Please stop, don’t hit me. Don’t hit me,’ ’’ said Nanci Pye, his landscaping boss. “And then he’ll start really crying.’’
He was recently transferred to Tewksbury Hospital. His family is trying to move him closer to Salem, so that his mother can see him more frequently, said his brother, Fredy Pojoy.
They are also raising money through Sovereign Bank for his care, Pojoy said.
Merida’s sister-in law and Pojoy’s wife, Maria Gonzalez, said the family has been shaken by the violence, and were troubled that the boys were allowed to return to Pop Warner football until there was public outcry over it. “My question is, when will we have justice?’’
Before the attack, Merida cared for his mother and they shared a room. Now, in the hospital, she curls up at the foot of his bed to keep him company.
“They tell me to be patient,’’ his mother said, her hands clasped in the apron of her lap. “If God allows it, he’ll come back. But he’ll never be the same.’’
http://www.boston.com/news/local/massachusetts/articles/2009/09/11/attack_on_immigrant_raises_concerns_in_lynn/
Tuesday, August 25, 2009
"Better to Be Deported Alive Than to Be Dead"
For undocumented residents, a call demanding ransom for a kidnapped loved one can lead to an equally fear-inducing call to federal immigration authorities.
By Josh White and Dagny Salas
Washington Post Staff Writers
Sunday, August 23, 2009
Ulises Martinez received the first call on a cold January morning, a stern voice shocking him through his cellphone. His in-laws had been taken hostage after a grueling border crossing from the Mexican desert into Arizona. Martinez would have to pay $3,000 to secure their release.
"I am not responsible for what will happen to them if you do not pay the money," the voice said. He would dismember the in-laws and dump them in the desert if Martinez didn't pay up. It was $3,000 Martinez, a 40-year-old Alexandria mechanic with a wife and toddler, didn't have and couldn't get.
As demands quickly increased to $5,400, Martinez's in-laws cowered in their underwear in a dark, squalid room in Phoenix and were told that their fingers would be cut off and their organs harvested if the cartel's demands weren't met.
Desperate and confused, Martinez, himself an undocumented immigrant, called U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement in the Washington area, touching off an intense federal investigation. It was one of dozens of such search-and-rescue missions spurred by similar menacing calls over the past year, and one of two cases in Northern Virginia in recent months.
As U.S. control of the border has strengthened since the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, it has become harder for people to cross illegally. That has spawned a boom in hostage-taking as smuggling cartels have realized that they can extort money from illegal immigrants' families in the United States, many of whom wire the ransom instead of risking their own deportation by contacting police.
Although the cartels hold captives in the southwest border states, the crimes have reached into the Washington region, where established immigrant communities include undocumented people who left their families behind in Central America. The kidnappers prey on working-class, Spanish-speaking immigrants because they are especially vulnerable: They would do almost anything to free their loved ones, and they are sometimes equally fearful of U.S. authorities.
Two recent cases, involving victims who received extortion calls in Alexandria and Prince William County, highlight how reporting such crimes can lead to daring rescues. ICE officials and local police hope the cases encourage others receiving extortion calls to come forward, both to save lives and to help them make inroads into the sprawling criminal organizations.
"Nobody deserves to be held against their will, regardless of their immigration status," said James Dinkins, special agent in charge of ICE investigations in the District and Virginia. "Nobody deserves to be abused or tortured or to have their life threatened. . . . The hostage takers must think the loved ones aren't going to call the cops."
The extortion demands -- which also have been reported in places including Washington state, California, Illinois and Florida -- have led ICE agents to work with victims to record and trace the calls. Officials estimate that more than 1,000 captives have been rescued in raids after victims such as Martinez come forward. But ICE officials say countless other kidnappings have gone unreported as victims quietly pay millions of dollars in ransom.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/08/22/AR2009082202356.html?sid%3DST2009082300832⊂=AR
By Josh White and Dagny Salas
Washington Post Staff Writers
Sunday, August 23, 2009
Ulises Martinez received the first call on a cold January morning, a stern voice shocking him through his cellphone. His in-laws had been taken hostage after a grueling border crossing from the Mexican desert into Arizona. Martinez would have to pay $3,000 to secure their release.
"I am not responsible for what will happen to them if you do not pay the money," the voice said. He would dismember the in-laws and dump them in the desert if Martinez didn't pay up. It was $3,000 Martinez, a 40-year-old Alexandria mechanic with a wife and toddler, didn't have and couldn't get.
As demands quickly increased to $5,400, Martinez's in-laws cowered in their underwear in a dark, squalid room in Phoenix and were told that their fingers would be cut off and their organs harvested if the cartel's demands weren't met.
Desperate and confused, Martinez, himself an undocumented immigrant, called U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement in the Washington area, touching off an intense federal investigation. It was one of dozens of such search-and-rescue missions spurred by similar menacing calls over the past year, and one of two cases in Northern Virginia in recent months.
As U.S. control of the border has strengthened since the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, it has become harder for people to cross illegally. That has spawned a boom in hostage-taking as smuggling cartels have realized that they can extort money from illegal immigrants' families in the United States, many of whom wire the ransom instead of risking their own deportation by contacting police.
Although the cartels hold captives in the southwest border states, the crimes have reached into the Washington region, where established immigrant communities include undocumented people who left their families behind in Central America. The kidnappers prey on working-class, Spanish-speaking immigrants because they are especially vulnerable: They would do almost anything to free their loved ones, and they are sometimes equally fearful of U.S. authorities.
Two recent cases, involving victims who received extortion calls in Alexandria and Prince William County, highlight how reporting such crimes can lead to daring rescues. ICE officials and local police hope the cases encourage others receiving extortion calls to come forward, both to save lives and to help them make inroads into the sprawling criminal organizations.
"Nobody deserves to be held against their will, regardless of their immigration status," said James Dinkins, special agent in charge of ICE investigations in the District and Virginia. "Nobody deserves to be abused or tortured or to have their life threatened. . . . The hostage takers must think the loved ones aren't going to call the cops."
The extortion demands -- which also have been reported in places including Washington state, California, Illinois and Florida -- have led ICE agents to work with victims to record and trace the calls. Officials estimate that more than 1,000 captives have been rescued in raids after victims such as Martinez come forward. But ICE officials say countless other kidnappings have gone unreported as victims quietly pay millions of dollars in ransom.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/08/22/AR2009082202356.html?sid%3DST2009082300832⊂=AR
Monday, December 15, 2008
U.S. economic, immigration policies caused this death
U.S. economic, immigration policies caused this death
By Stephen Bartlett, Brian Rich and Attica Scott
Lexington-Herald Leader, KY
December 14, 2008
After almost four months since the death of Salvadoran immigrant house cleaner Ana Romero in custody in the Franklin County jail, we feel the need to be clear about who we hold to be responsible for this tragic death.
Ana, like many of her fellow undocumented immigrants migrating from south of the U.S. border, did not come here with any criminal intent. Her motivation was to provide for her family, including her aging mother and her two grown children, through hard and honest work.
Although the specific persons who may or may not have been guilty of violating Ana's due process, or mistreating her in jail, or neglecting the needs of Spanish-speaking prisoners have yet to be identified -- and no matter what the official cause of death is deemed to be -- it was fundamentally the system that killed Ana Romero.
U.S. economic policy and intervention in El Salvador has severely impoverished the great majority of people in that country. The penetration of U.S. transnational corporations has wiped out rural economies based on agriculture and small businesses of many kinds.
http://www.kentucky.com/589/story/626430.html
By Stephen Bartlett, Brian Rich and Attica Scott
Lexington-Herald Leader, KY
December 14, 2008
After almost four months since the death of Salvadoran immigrant house cleaner Ana Romero in custody in the Franklin County jail, we feel the need to be clear about who we hold to be responsible for this tragic death.
Ana, like many of her fellow undocumented immigrants migrating from south of the U.S. border, did not come here with any criminal intent. Her motivation was to provide for her family, including her aging mother and her two grown children, through hard and honest work.
Although the specific persons who may or may not have been guilty of violating Ana's due process, or mistreating her in jail, or neglecting the needs of Spanish-speaking prisoners have yet to be identified -- and no matter what the official cause of death is deemed to be -- it was fundamentally the system that killed Ana Romero.
U.S. economic policy and intervention in El Salvador has severely impoverished the great majority of people in that country. The penetration of U.S. transnational corporations has wiped out rural economies based on agriculture and small businesses of many kinds.
http://www.kentucky.com/589/story/626430.html
Tuesday, November 11, 2008
A Death in Patchogue
A Death in Patchogue
November 11, 2008
New York Times Editorial
Marcello Lucero was killed late Saturday night near the commuter railroad station in Patchogue, N.Y., a middle-class village in central Long Island. He was beaten and stabbed. The friend who crouched beside him in a parking lot as he lay dying, soaked in blood, said Mr. Lucero, who was 37, had come to the United States 16 years ago from Ecuador.
The police arrested seven teenage boys, who they said had driven into the village from out of town looking for Latinos to beat up. The police said the mob cornered Mr. Lucero and another man, who escaped and later identified the suspects to the police. A prosecutor at the arraignment on Monday quoted the young men as having said: “Let’s go find some Mexicans.” They have pleaded not guilty.
The county executive, Steve Levy, quickly issued a news release denouncing this latest apparent hate crime in Suffolk County. That should be the first and least of the actions he and other leaders take.
A possible lynching in a New York suburb should be more than enough to force this country to acknowledge the bitter chill that has overcome Latinos in these days of rage against illegal immigration.
The atmosphere began to darken when Republican politicians decided a few years ago to exploit immigration as a wedge issue. They drafted harsh legislation to criminalize the undocumented.
They cheered as vigilantes streamed to the border to confront the concocted crisis of Spanish-speaking workers sneaking in to steal jobs and spread diseases. Cable personalities and radio talk-show hosts latched on to the issue. Years of effort in Congress to assemble a responsible overhaul of the immigration system failed repeatedly. Its opponents wanted only to demonize and punish the Latino workers on which the country had come to depend.
A campaign of raids and deportations, led by federal agents with help from state and local posses, has become so pervasive that nearly 1 in 10 Latinos, including citizens and legal immigrants, have told of being stopped and asked about their immigration status, according to the Pew Hispanic Center. Now that the economy is in free fall, the possibility of scapegoating is deepening Hispanic anxiety.
It is not yet clear how closely connected Mr. Lucero’s murder is to this broad wave of xenophobia. But there is both a message and opportunity here for officials like Mr. Levy, an immigration hard-liner whose relations with his rapidly growing Latino immigrant constituency have been strained by past crises and confrontations.
Deadly violence represents the worst fear that immigrants deal with every day, but it is not the only one. It must be every leader’s task to move beyond easy outrage and take on the difficult job of understanding and defending a community so vulnerable to sudden outbreaks of hostility and terror.
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/11/11/opinion/11tue3.html?_r=1&ref=opinion&oref=slogin
November 11, 2008
New York Times Editorial
Marcello Lucero was killed late Saturday night near the commuter railroad station in Patchogue, N.Y., a middle-class village in central Long Island. He was beaten and stabbed. The friend who crouched beside him in a parking lot as he lay dying, soaked in blood, said Mr. Lucero, who was 37, had come to the United States 16 years ago from Ecuador.
The police arrested seven teenage boys, who they said had driven into the village from out of town looking for Latinos to beat up. The police said the mob cornered Mr. Lucero and another man, who escaped and later identified the suspects to the police. A prosecutor at the arraignment on Monday quoted the young men as having said: “Let’s go find some Mexicans.” They have pleaded not guilty.
The county executive, Steve Levy, quickly issued a news release denouncing this latest apparent hate crime in Suffolk County. That should be the first and least of the actions he and other leaders take.
A possible lynching in a New York suburb should be more than enough to force this country to acknowledge the bitter chill that has overcome Latinos in these days of rage against illegal immigration.
The atmosphere began to darken when Republican politicians decided a few years ago to exploit immigration as a wedge issue. They drafted harsh legislation to criminalize the undocumented.
They cheered as vigilantes streamed to the border to confront the concocted crisis of Spanish-speaking workers sneaking in to steal jobs and spread diseases. Cable personalities and radio talk-show hosts latched on to the issue. Years of effort in Congress to assemble a responsible overhaul of the immigration system failed repeatedly. Its opponents wanted only to demonize and punish the Latino workers on which the country had come to depend.
A campaign of raids and deportations, led by federal agents with help from state and local posses, has become so pervasive that nearly 1 in 10 Latinos, including citizens and legal immigrants, have told of being stopped and asked about their immigration status, according to the Pew Hispanic Center. Now that the economy is in free fall, the possibility of scapegoating is deepening Hispanic anxiety.
It is not yet clear how closely connected Mr. Lucero’s murder is to this broad wave of xenophobia. But there is both a message and opportunity here for officials like Mr. Levy, an immigration hard-liner whose relations with his rapidly growing Latino immigrant constituency have been strained by past crises and confrontations.
Deadly violence represents the worst fear that immigrants deal with every day, but it is not the only one. It must be every leader’s task to move beyond easy outrage and take on the difficult job of understanding and defending a community so vulnerable to sudden outbreaks of hostility and terror.
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/11/11/opinion/11tue3.html?_r=1&ref=opinion&oref=slogin
Friday, July 25, 2008
Pa. teens charged in fatal beating of immigrant
By MICHAEL RUBINKAM
MSNBC
July 25th, 2008
Three white teens were charged Friday in what officials said was an epithet-filled fatal beating of an illegal Mexican immigrant in a small northeast Pennsylvania coal town. Brandon J. Piekarsky, 16, and Colin J. Walsh, 17, were charged as adults with homicide and ethnic intimidation in the July 12 attack on Luis Ramirez.
A third teen, Derrick M. Donchak, 18, was charged with aggravated assault, ethnic intimidation and other offenses. All are from Shenandoah, where the attack occurred.
Additional charges are expected in the case that has roiled Shenandoah, a small, economically depressed town where police have reported friction between whites and a growing Hispanic population.
The suspects played football at Shenandoah Valley High School; Donchak, now enrolled at Bloomsburg University, was the quarterback last season.
"As a result of this crime, a young man has lost his life. Many other lives have been devastated, and the borough of Shenandoah has been filled with tensions between many ethnic groups," Schuylkill County District Attorney James Goodman said.
"Now that the criminal charges have been filed, we must let this case be handled in the criminal justice system," he said.
According to a police affidavit, the defendants and three 17-year-olds encountered Ramirez, 25, and a teenage girl in a park the night of July 12.
The youths goaded Ramirez and the girl, saying, "You should get out of this neighborhood" and "Get your Mexican boyfriend out of here," documents said. After Ramirez and the girl began walking away, someone yelled an ethnic slur at him, court documents said. He responded, "What's your problem?"
A fight ensued, during which police said Walsh punched Ramirez in the face. The victim fell and hit his head on the street, leaving him unconscious, after which Piekarsky kicked him in the head, police said.
All three suspects used ethnic slurs during the fight, which ended with Ramirez in convulsions and foaming at the mouth, authorities said. The attackers fled the scene; Ramirez underwent surgery but died July 14 of head injuries.
Piekarsky and Walsh were being held without bail, while Donchak was held on $75,000 bail.
Lawyers for Piekarsky and Walsh said their clients are not guilty and that there was no evidence to support the homicide charges. They also said they would try to have the case removed to juvenile court.
Roger Laguna, Walsh's lawyer, said the police affidavit "pretty much describes chaos, and what you have then after the fact is somebody trying to sort through that and attribute certain acts to certain individuals."
He said that although slurs might have been used, the fight was not motivated by ethnicity.
"I think any time there's a fight and any time you have one ethnic group fighting another, there's going to be racial slurs," he said. "I've seen that since I was a kid on a playground 20 years ago, but they never called it ethnic intimidation until very recently."
Frederick Fanelli, Piekarsky's lawyer, said he is "surprised and disappointed" that his client faces a homicide charge, attributing Ramirez's death to a "street fight that ended tragically."
Donchak declined to comment.
Ramirez, who entered the U.S. illegally about six years ago, worked in a factory and picked strawberries and cherries.
Crystal Dillman, the victim's 24-year-old fiancee, who is white and grew up in Shenandoah, has said Ramirez was often called derogatory names and told to return to his homeland. The couple had two children together, and Dillman also has a 3-year-old who thought of Ramirez as her father.
"I plan on moving out of this town as fast as I can. Not because I'm scared. I just don't want to see my children have to deal with what their father dealt with," Dillman said.
Preliminary hearings for all three suspects were set for Aug. 4.
Goodman said a fourth teen will be charged as a juvenile with aggravated assault and ethnic intimidation and that charges also will be filed against a man who provided alcohol to the defendants hours before the attack.
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/25854696/ns/us_news-crime_and_courts
MSNBC
July 25th, 2008
Three white teens were charged Friday in what officials said was an epithet-filled fatal beating of an illegal Mexican immigrant in a small northeast Pennsylvania coal town. Brandon J. Piekarsky, 16, and Colin J. Walsh, 17, were charged as adults with homicide and ethnic intimidation in the July 12 attack on Luis Ramirez.
A third teen, Derrick M. Donchak, 18, was charged with aggravated assault, ethnic intimidation and other offenses. All are from Shenandoah, where the attack occurred.
Additional charges are expected in the case that has roiled Shenandoah, a small, economically depressed town where police have reported friction between whites and a growing Hispanic population.
The suspects played football at Shenandoah Valley High School; Donchak, now enrolled at Bloomsburg University, was the quarterback last season.
"As a result of this crime, a young man has lost his life. Many other lives have been devastated, and the borough of Shenandoah has been filled with tensions between many ethnic groups," Schuylkill County District Attorney James Goodman said.
"Now that the criminal charges have been filed, we must let this case be handled in the criminal justice system," he said.
According to a police affidavit, the defendants and three 17-year-olds encountered Ramirez, 25, and a teenage girl in a park the night of July 12.
The youths goaded Ramirez and the girl, saying, "You should get out of this neighborhood" and "Get your Mexican boyfriend out of here," documents said. After Ramirez and the girl began walking away, someone yelled an ethnic slur at him, court documents said. He responded, "What's your problem?"
A fight ensued, during which police said Walsh punched Ramirez in the face. The victim fell and hit his head on the street, leaving him unconscious, after which Piekarsky kicked him in the head, police said.
All three suspects used ethnic slurs during the fight, which ended with Ramirez in convulsions and foaming at the mouth, authorities said. The attackers fled the scene; Ramirez underwent surgery but died July 14 of head injuries.
Piekarsky and Walsh were being held without bail, while Donchak was held on $75,000 bail.
Lawyers for Piekarsky and Walsh said their clients are not guilty and that there was no evidence to support the homicide charges. They also said they would try to have the case removed to juvenile court.
Roger Laguna, Walsh's lawyer, said the police affidavit "pretty much describes chaos, and what you have then after the fact is somebody trying to sort through that and attribute certain acts to certain individuals."
He said that although slurs might have been used, the fight was not motivated by ethnicity.
"I think any time there's a fight and any time you have one ethnic group fighting another, there's going to be racial slurs," he said. "I've seen that since I was a kid on a playground 20 years ago, but they never called it ethnic intimidation until very recently."
Frederick Fanelli, Piekarsky's lawyer, said he is "surprised and disappointed" that his client faces a homicide charge, attributing Ramirez's death to a "street fight that ended tragically."
Donchak declined to comment.
Ramirez, who entered the U.S. illegally about six years ago, worked in a factory and picked strawberries and cherries.
Crystal Dillman, the victim's 24-year-old fiancee, who is white and grew up in Shenandoah, has said Ramirez was often called derogatory names and told to return to his homeland. The couple had two children together, and Dillman also has a 3-year-old who thought of Ramirez as her father.
"I plan on moving out of this town as fast as I can. Not because I'm scared. I just don't want to see my children have to deal with what their father dealt with," Dillman said.
Preliminary hearings for all three suspects were set for Aug. 4.
Goodman said a fourth teen will be charged as a juvenile with aggravated assault and ethnic intimidation and that charges also will be filed against a man who provided alcohol to the defendants hours before the attack.
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/25854696/ns/us_news-crime_and_courts
Wednesday, January 24, 2001
Four Local Men Accused Of Hate Crime
Wednesday January 24, 2001
KGTV San Diego News
Officials Search For Witnesses
Authorities are searching for anyone who may have witnessed a savage late-night beating that caused the victim to lose his nose.
Four young men are in jail and facing the possibility of long state-prison terms in connection with the Dec. 30 assault on Orange County restaurant worker Steven Pappas as he walked toward a public restroom at the U.S.-Mexico border last month.
"There were a lot of people in the parking lot," San Diego police Detective Christopher Chaney said. "And we're hoping that someone who saw this will come forward."
On Tuesday, three East County residents and a South Bay college student pleaded not guilty to mayhem, assault and hate crime charges in the case.
Ordered held on $500,000 bail each pending trial were Jason E. Phillips, a theater arts major at Southwestern College in Chula Vista; Santee residents Benjamin Pospisil, 21, and Jeremiah Pospisil, 24; and 19-year-old Kristopher Gill of Lakeside.
At the defendants' arraignment, Deputy District Attorney Hector Jimenez said that they jumped the victim because of his race.
Pappas, 24, is half-Latino and half-Italian.
Phillips apparently was angry about money that he lost in Mexico, and two of his companions yelled derogatory remarks at Pappas, Jimenez said.
"They said, 'Go back to Mexico where you belong,"' the prosecutor told the judge.
The belligerent men demanded Pappas' wallet, then "viciously and brutally" attacked him, Jimenez said.
"Mr. Pappas lost his nose," he told the judge. "He will never be able to smell again. He will always be disfigured."
The defendants yelled, "Lakeside! This is for white power!" as they pummeled the victim, according to prosecutors.
Phillips allegedly beat Pappas with a heavy traffic cone while his cohorts kicked him.
The defendants turned themselves in last weekend when they learned that authorities were looking for them.
Phillips could spend up to 33 years in prison if convicted. Each of the other defendants faces at least 19 years in a state penitentiary.
http://dailynews.yahoo.com/h/kgtv/20010124/lo/294603_1.html
KGTV San Diego News
Officials Search For Witnesses
Authorities are searching for anyone who may have witnessed a savage late-night beating that caused the victim to lose his nose.
Four young men are in jail and facing the possibility of long state-prison terms in connection with the Dec. 30 assault on Orange County restaurant worker Steven Pappas as he walked toward a public restroom at the U.S.-Mexico border last month.
"There were a lot of people in the parking lot," San Diego police Detective Christopher Chaney said. "And we're hoping that someone who saw this will come forward."
On Tuesday, three East County residents and a South Bay college student pleaded not guilty to mayhem, assault and hate crime charges in the case.
Ordered held on $500,000 bail each pending trial were Jason E. Phillips, a theater arts major at Southwestern College in Chula Vista; Santee residents Benjamin Pospisil, 21, and Jeremiah Pospisil, 24; and 19-year-old Kristopher Gill of Lakeside.
At the defendants' arraignment, Deputy District Attorney Hector Jimenez said that they jumped the victim because of his race.
Pappas, 24, is half-Latino and half-Italian.
Phillips apparently was angry about money that he lost in Mexico, and two of his companions yelled derogatory remarks at Pappas, Jimenez said.
"They said, 'Go back to Mexico where you belong,"' the prosecutor told the judge.
The belligerent men demanded Pappas' wallet, then "viciously and brutally" attacked him, Jimenez said.
"Mr. Pappas lost his nose," he told the judge. "He will never be able to smell again. He will always be disfigured."
The defendants yelled, "Lakeside! This is for white power!" as they pummeled the victim, according to prosecutors.
Phillips allegedly beat Pappas with a heavy traffic cone while his cohorts kicked him.
The defendants turned themselves in last weekend when they learned that authorities were looking for them.
Phillips could spend up to 33 years in prison if convicted. Each of the other defendants faces at least 19 years in a state penitentiary.
http://dailynews.yahoo.com/h/kgtv/20010124/lo/294603_1.html
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)