4 Teens Murder Illegal Immigrant.

[starang21]

http://www.cnn.com/2008/CRIME/07/31/...ing/index.html

SHENANDOAH, Pennsylvania (CNN) -- By the time help arrived, Luis Ramirez lay convulsing in the middle of the street, foam running from his mouth.


Football players Brandon Piekarsy, Colin Walsh and Derrick Donchak are charged with ethnic intimidation.
3 of 3 more photos » Blows had struck the 25-year-old illegal Mexican immigrant with such force that they left a clotted, bruised impression of Jesus Christ on the skin of his chest from the religious medal he wore.

His attackers were white teenagers, including star students and football players, witnesses told police.

After a night of drinking, the teens taunted the undocumented worker with racial epithets, pummeled him to the ground and then kicked him in the head, court documents charge. He died in a hospital two days later.

It took almost two weeks for arrests to be made. But on July 25, Colin J. Walsh, 17, and Brandon J. Piekarsky, 16, were charged as adults with homicide and ethnic intimidation.

Derrick M. Donchak, 18, was charged as an adult with aggravated assault and ethnic intimidation and an unnamed juvenile was also charged with assault. The U.S. Department of Justice announced Wednesday that its civil rights division has opened a criminal investigation.

Defense attorneys for two of the teens say Ramirez responded to the name-calling with his own insults, which escalated the confrontation into a fight that got out of hand.

The words allegedly hurled at Ramirez, and the perceived sentiments behind them, led prosecutors to label his death a hate crime.

>snip<

[DSTCHAOS]

Hate crime.

Fry 'em.

[WinniBug]

OH MY GAWD
That's horrible

What kind of person could do such a thing?

[SWTXBelle]

Originally Posted by starang21

http://www.cnn.com/2008/CRIME/07/31/...ing/index.html

SHENANDOAH, Pennsylvania (CNN) --

Defense attorneys for two of the teens say Ramirez responded to the name-calling with his own insults, which escalated the confrontation into a fight that got out of hand.

>snip<

Soooo . . .is the defense going to be that since he insulted them after they insulted him, his murder is justified?? Huh? HUH?

[Kevin]

Originally Posted by SWTXBelle

Soooo . . .is the defense going to be that since he insulted them after they insulted him, his murder is justified?? Huh? HUH?

I think they might be trying to shoot for a manslaughter charge, not an acquittal at this point.

[PeppyGPhiB]

http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/htm...roline21m.html

A couple weeks ago in Seattle we had a similar situation arise in what some thought might be a racially motivated crime. A 60 year old man - a decorated Vietnam vet - was tending the flowers he had planted in his street's traffic circle. He had placed traffic cones on one side of the circle to protect his garden hose, which he was using to water the flowers. Well, three teenage girls pulled up and wanted to go through the circle, demanding he move the cones out of the road. The man refused, so the girls got out of the car, started moving his cones, yelling at him and getting in his face. The man, as captured in a neighbor's home video, tried to ignore the girls, but they were having none of that - they threw a jug of water at him, then at least one of them went down the street to go get the boyfriend of a friend. The boyfriend drives up a few minutes later, walks up to the man and sucker punches him in the face, so unexpectedly that the man didn't even raise his hands to defend himself. The man fell backwards to the ground and hit his head on the curb, fracturing his skull. The boyfriend - coward he is - ran back to his car and drove off. The injured man died the next day. The girls remained on the scene but lied to police, and they finally identified the guy that committed the assault a few days later and were able to arrange for him to turn himself in. He's been charged with second degree murder, but some folks here are so upset about it (he's got multiple convictions) that they've been calling for the death penalty. Meanwhile, other people say that the man caused the altercation in the first place by blocking the residential street.

Violence is not the way to solve problems. I'm really tired of people with no self-control or drive to just do the right thing.

[epchick]

That is sooo terrible Peppy! Can't the girls get charged for something as well, like assault since they threw the jug? And lieing to police?

[texas*princess]

^^^ lying to the police is most def. a crime.

That's so awful. I hope the people responsible in both cases get prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law.

[squirrely girl]

somebody could argue that the the girlfriend in this situation could be/should be charged - without her the boyfriend would have never have been there. who knows what she said to him on the way to bringing him back...