Mexican’s Death Bares a Town’s Ethnic Tension - The New York Times - Brutal Racist Murder by Beating

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The New York Times
Mexican’s Death Bares a Town’s Ethnic Tension
A Gang of Racist Teens beats a Man to Death.

By SEAN D. HAMILL
August 5, 2008

Some excerpts :

SHENANDOAH, Pa. — Crystal Dillman knows that four teenagers have been charged in the death of her fiancé, Luis Ramirez, that the Civil Rights Division of the Justice Department is monitoring the case and that most people in this small town in the Appalachian Mountains believe it was a horrible crime.

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Jacqueline Dormer/The Pottsville Republican and Herald, via Associated PressCrystal Dillman with a photograph of her and her fiancé, Luis Ramirez, an illegal immigrant beaten to death in Shenandoah, Pa.

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Brandon Piekarski, 16, left, and Collin Walsh, 17, right, were charged with homicide, and Derrick Donchak, 18, center, with lesser counts in the beating death in Shenandoah, Pa. of Luis Ramirez, an illegal immigrant.

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But Ms. Dillman, the mother of Mr. Ramirez’s two young children, is not sure justice will prevail.

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“I think they might get off,” she said of the four teenagers, “because Luis was an illegal Mexican and these are ‘all-American boys’ on the football team who get good grades, or whatever they’re saying about them. They’ll find some way to let them go.”

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