According to an article from fox news two teenagers from Pottsville Pennsylvania were acquitted of third-degree murder, aggravated assault and ethnic intimidation charges yesterday. The teens were accused of beating a Mexican immigrant to death and Prosecutors called the “beating death of an illegal immigrant from Mexico a hate crime”. Not only did these two teens get acquitted but the jury was an all-white jury in Pennsylvania coal country. I thought that jury’s couldn’t be all the same race because of bias, but I guess this didn’t matter because it happened in Pennsylvania and not New York. Images are from fox news.
Brandon Piekarsky, who is 17, was acquitted of third-degree murder and ethnic intimidation. Derrick Donchak, who is 19, was acquitted of aggravated assault and ethnic intimidation. Both teenagers were convicted of simple assault. Both brutally beat the 25-year-old Hispanic man, Luis Ramirez, and were only charged with a simple assault. A representative of the Ramirez’s family states that these jurors got it wrong. Glady’s Limon who is the staff attorney for the Mexican American Legal Defense and
Education Fund, was at the trial and informed the Ramirez’s family of the verdict is outraged by the outcome of this case. She says, "There's been a complete failure of justice...It's just outrageous and very difficult to understand how any juror could have had reasonable doubt…clearly established that Luis Ramirez was brutally beaten."The case brought ethnic tensions in Shenandoah PA, which is described as “a blue-collar town of 5,000 that has lured Hispanic residents drawn by cheap housing and jobs in nearby factories and farm fields”. The 2000 U.S. Census showed that Schuylkill County's population was “96.6 percent white, with 1.1 percent of the county listed as Hispanic or Latino” meaning most people haven’t even seen a non-white person.
This is insane how people today are still being racist we are in 2009 why do people still hate other people. Is it because he wasn’t a citizen or because he didn’t have the same color skin as them? Also how is it possible to have an all white jury especially when there is a hate crime at hand? It just makes me think how corrupt our legal system still is along with all the other problems our country has right now. I think these kids should have gotten more of a sentence instead with a slap on the wrist which is basically what they got. It makes me wonder if they didn’t happen in Bumblefuck PA and it happened in a major city like NY, if these kids would have gotten the same sentence or a different one.
The world we live in today is absurb. With all the hate crimes, murders, school shootings, etc what will the world be like years from now? Will improvements be made? Will my children be safe? No one ever has any answers. I don't think any of this will come to a stop!
ReplyDeleteHate crimes might be the most horrific type of crime their is. In this case A man of Mexican heritage was brutally beaten by someone of white ethnicity. This is absolutely absurd and horendus. The fact that this exists scares me, and im glad that these crimes are being punished as severly as they are because this is a very serious issue that needs to be taken very seriously. I am glad to see that someone in our class is taking this seriously, and im looking foward to reading more of your posts in the future.
ReplyDeleteStories like this make me lose a little faith in the human race. What is even worse is that the jury acquitted them. There is a serious racial bias issue here and i'm surprised no one has addressed it. Now these teens have gotten away with this terrible crime, excusing them of all responsibilities. There is no good reason why anyone should put beat another human being to death. These people are ignorant and need to wake up to the world around them.
ReplyDeletethese types of things are happening every day its sad but now that we know that it is happening is about what types of steps we are going to take to change and prevent these things from happening
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