By Michael Rubinkam, The Associated Press
SHENANDOAH, Pa. - Luis Ramirez came to the U.S. from Mexico six years ago to look for work, landing in this town in Pennsylvania's coal region. Here, he found steady employment, fathered two children and, his fiancee said, occasionally endured harassment by white residents.
Now he is headed back to Mexico in a coffin.
The 25-year-old illegal immigrant was beaten over the weekend after an argument with a group of youths, including at least some players on the town's beloved high school football team, police said. Despite witness reports that the attackers yelled ethnic slurs, authorities say the beating wasn't racially motivated.
Hate crime or not, the killing has exposed long-simmering tensions in Shenandoah, a blue-collar town of 5,000 about 80 miles northwest of Philadelphia that has a growing number of Hispanic residents drawn by jobs in factories and farm fields.
An investigation continues, and no charges have yet been filed, but police say as many as six teens were involved in the fight, which ended with Ramirez in convulsions and foaming at the mouth. He died early Monday of head injuries.
Crystal Dillman, the victim's 24-year-old fiancee, who is white and grew up here, said Ramirez was often called derogatory names, including "dirty Mexican," and told to return to his homeland.
"People in this town are very racist toward Hispanic people. They think right away if you're Mexican, you're illegal, and you're no good,"
said Dillman, who has two young children by Ramirez and a 3-year-old who thought of him as her father.
On Dillman's fireplace mantel hangs a medallion of Jesus that Ramirez was wearing the night he was beaten. Ramirez had an imprint of the medallion on his chest, marking where an assailant stomped on him, she said.
Police Chief Matthew Nestor acknowledged there have been problems as the community - the birthplace of big-band musicians Tommy and Jimmy Dorsey and home of Mrs. T's Pierogies - has tried to adjust to an influx of Hispanics, who now comprise as much as 10 percent of the population.
Teenagers have sprayed racially tinged graffiti and yelled racial slurs at the newcomers, he said.
Police are still interviewing suspects and witnesses. Preliminarily, though, they have determined that Ramirez, who worked in a factory and picked strawberries and cherries, got into an argument with a group of youths that escalated into a fight in which he was badly outnumbered.
http://www.dailynews.com/crime/ci_9928154
0 comments
Post a Comment