Another Major Anti-Latino Hate Attack Makes the News
Four reputed white supremacist gang members in connection with the vicious beating of a Latino man on Nov. 19 in Hemet, Calif. The victim, a 19-year-old whose name police would not release, was knocked unconscious and then repeatedly stomped and kicked in the head. He suffered permanent brain damage and has been placed in a long-term care facility. According to investigators, the attack was random, unprovoked and motivated purely by racial hatred.
Hemet is located in the region of California known as the Inland Empire, which, as the Intelligence Report in 2005, has become a hotbed of white supremacist activity during an ongoing phase of rapid demographic shifts.
But the attack is also part of a frightening national pattern of rising anti-Latino violence. Hate crimes targeting Latinos 40% since 2003, according to the most recent FBI statistics, which are known to undercount total hate crimes but nevertheless do indicate real trends. Whatever its exact level, the sharp rise in violence against Latinos has paralleled the spike in on both the right-wing extremist margins of society and within the so-called mainstream media.
Last July, for instance, three white teenagers shouting ethnic slurs allegedly beat to death a 25-year-old Mexican immigrant in Shenandoah, Pa. Six weeks later, the nativist extremist group Voice of the People held a in Shenandoah, near the site of the murder. The attending crowd of roughly 50 included several members of the Keystone State Skinheads, a Harrisburg, Pa.-based racist skinhead gang.
More recently, in November, seven teens in Patchogue, N.Y., six of them white, decided to 鈥済o fight a Mexican鈥� and randomly attacked an Ecuadorean immigrant who died after one of the assailants rushed at him with a knife, authorities said. As The New York Times last week: 鈥淭he attacks were such an established pastime that the youths, who have pleaded not guilty, had a casual and derogatory term for it, 鈥榖----- hopping.鈥� One of the youths told the authorities, 鈥業 don鈥檛 go out doing this very often, maybe once a week.鈥欌�� Times reporters interviewed 11 Latino men in the area who detailed 13 similar 鈥� though non-fatal 鈥� attacks before the 鈥渂----- hopping鈥� finally turned deadly.
The upswing in anti-Latino violence does not seem to be abating. The occurred on New Year鈥檚 Day, when a Vallejo, Calif., motorist was arrested for gunning his vehicle toward a crowd of Latino day laborers. No injuries were reported. Frederick Martin, 31, was charged with assault with a deadly weapon and committing a hate crime. Martin told police he was 鈥渢rying to scare鈥� the workers.
