'White power' chanted during immigration discussion at school

Written by: Jeffrey Wolf, Web Producer
and Nelson Garcia, Reporter



BROOMFIELD – It started with a simple question and ended with at least one student chanting "white power" in a classroom.

It happened Tuesday in a classroom at Holy Family High School, the Catholic school that sits at the corner of 144th Avenue and Sheridan Boulevard in Broomfield.

The classroom discussion started with the question: Why do students need to learn Spanish?

According to the Archdiocese of Denver, the conversation soon became about immigration and it turned ugly.

"It became a heated discussion and some rhetoric was used that was inappropriate for the classroom," said Jeanette DeMelo, spokesperson for the Archdiocese of Denver.

At least one e-mail sent to 9NEWS said that at least one student started a chant of "white power" and some said that all Mexicans should go back to Mexico.

"Immigration is an explosive topic right now. It seeped into the classroom," she said.

The Archdiocese says they did not expect something like this to happen in their system, which has embraced its Hispanic students. Archbishop Charles Chaput has come forward several times in support of the Mexican community.

"I think the teacher was a little bit unprepared for that type of discussion in a language classroom," said DeMelo.

The archdiocese says the four students who instigated the whole thing have been talked to and supposedly are remorseful. The Spanish teacher also met with administrators.

An e-mail sent to 9NEWS states the Hispanic students in the class at the time asked to leave, but were forced to stay in the classroom.

Holy Family Principal Sr. Mary Rose Lieb, O.S.F. released a statement on Thursday evening about the incident:

"On Tuesday in a Spanish-language class at Holy Family High School, a single handful of students used heated and inappropriate rhetoric in a discussion on immigration. In a class of approximately 30 students, fewer than six students voiced strong anti-immigration opinions. The remaining two-thirds of the class were silent or voiced support for immigrants. At the end of the discussion, one student inappropriately said "white power," two or three times. Most of the students in the class did not hear the comments. Contrary to media reports, there were no chants by more than one student. Two students, who were offended, asked to leave the classroom and were given permission to leave. However, the discussion ended when other students realized how these students were affected and all of the students remained until the end of class."

"When the administration received a complaint regarding this discussion, interviews were conducted of the students in the classroom as well as the teacher. The student who acted inappropriately was disciplined and the situation has been addressed with the teacher."

"The administration treated this situation as a teaching moment - an opportunity to reaffirm that respect and charity should be the foundation of every dialogue and encounter with another."

"Holy Family High School is dedicated to being a family - through respect and charity for all its members. It's always had a diverse student body. It values that diversity and strives to be a place of unity and respect for all. The distortion and inaccurate reporting of this situation is hurtful to a community that should be praised for how well they get along in their diversity."

"In all archdiocesan Catholic schools there is ongoing in-services for administrators, teachers and staff on relevant topics such as immigration, historic justice, issues of bullying and respect."

School leaders at Holy Family say their school is all about inclusiveness. It is in the school's motto and in the spirit of their teachings.

"Holy Family is precisely what its name is: a family. And they've always prided themselves on the diversity," said DeMelo.

Holy Family has a large Hispanic population and the archdiocese wants to make sure everyone is comfortable going to school.

"We are seeing the Hispanic population trust in the Catholic school system and in the diversity that exists there," said DeMelo.

Source: 9news

Fight Leaves Two Injured

Dennis Edwards
Reporting

(WJZ) One man was stabbed with an ice pick. Another was hit by a shovel in a melee ignited by racial slurs and complicated by frustration over crime.

Sky Eye Chopper 13 was over the intersection of Chain O Hills Road and Queen Anne Road after a group of white teenagers attacked six black teenagers. It all started around noon when Clara Montgomery's son was walking by a house a block away.

"My son was going to pick up my niece from school and meet her and the guy started calling him racial words, slurs to him and started throwing beer bottles at him and he ignored him," Montgomery said.

But Eyewitness News learns a group of black teenagers allegedly retaliated by smashing windows in the man's truck and home. Four hours later, six black teenagers apparently abandoned a stolen car near the intersection as a group of white men and teenagers allegedly attack. Montgomery's son was stabbed in the leg and another teenager was hit with a shovel.

"Six to eight white boys had shovels...bats, knives. Both of 'em, intermixed. They both had weapons. Swinging, throwing bats," said Lee Anne Grigsby.

"The guy was swinging a shovel and a rake, trying to hit my son and them. He was taking off his clothes to see where he was stabbed at," Montgomery said.

Anne Arundel County Police declined on-camera interviews. They also aren't talking about suspects in the case, but Eyewitness News has learned two people have been taken into custody and police may be looking for at least two more.

Neighbors tell Eyewitness News racial tensions have escalated with an increase in burglaries and car thefts but what's clear in this violent melee is a problem on both sides of the racial divide.

Neighbors tell Eyewitness News they're hoping police and other authorities will intervene before someone gets seriously hurt.

Source: WJZ

Nazi Group To Protest Illegal Immigration In Omaha

Omaha, NE - A major Omaha road may be shut down this weekend by Nazis.

The National Socialist Movement will shut down Dodge street Saturday to protest illegal immigration. The Nazi protest at the Mexican Consulate is becoming a cause for community concern. So much concern in fact, the white supremacist group will receive a police escort in and out of Omaha as well as police security during the event according to both the consulate and protestors.

"I have seen every kind of demonstration from pro to totally contrary so they are totally within there right to do it," says Consul Jose Luis Cuevas.

His calm demeanor may be unexpected but it couldn't be more opposite of the National Socialist Movement. The white supremacist group planning to crowd the streets around Cuevas building.

"This is not Mexico and we don't want it to be Mexico," says Col. Tim Bishop with the National Socialist Movement.

Illegal immigration threatens the self described Nazi group's main goal.

"The preservation and the promotion of the white Arian Caucasian people," says Bishop.

Only the swastika emblazoned protest against illegal immigrants will happen outside the one place in Omaha Mexicans can obtain legal identification.

"I guess because it has a Mexican flag out front or they misinterpret what we do," says the Consul.

"They're telling people to come here. They're telling people where they can get social services. They're telling people how to exploit the system," says Bishop.

The consul's concern is not the demonstration but the potential for violent public reaction and damage to his building.

"A counter demonstration is not productive in any way and that's exactly what these people are looking for."

"Everything pro-white is racist. They've forced us into this extremist political position. And so they give us no other option so they should not be surprised with this rally," says Bishop.

Source: Action3News

Hate Graffiti Mars Plainview, Long Island Park

Plainview, L.I. (1010 WINS) -- Nassau County police are investigating a bias incident at a Plainview park.

Authorities say a swastika, anti-Semitic slurs, and racial slurs were spray painted on signs, bleacher seats, and a slide at a playground at Lindsay Street and Sally Lane.

The perpetrators hit the park sometime between Friday night and Saturday morning.

The Town of Oyster Bay is removing the graffiti.

Detectives ask anyone with information to call Crime Stoppers at 1-800-244-TIPS. All callers will remain anonymous.

Source: 1010wins

Study shows that diversity impacts a company's success

by Joseph Wardy, Jacquie Schmall, Sheeja Saji, and Joyce Priddy

Sociologist Cedric Henning, of the University of Illinois at Chicago, recently conducted a study about diversity. Beyond the question that diversity is positive, Mr.Henning wanted evidence that it made a difference. Conclusion: Diversity makes a difference and the study shows impact on company's success.

Let's begin by reviewing how Mr. Henning conducted his research. He began by obtaining data about diversity levels and business performance from about 250 companies. Verification was secured from Dun& Bradstreet and the federal government. The companies ranged from 10 employees to multinational corporations with thousands of employees.Fact: Regardless of the size of the company, Henning found the same relationship between diversity and business success.Here are two of Henning's findings:

* Diversity supporters have long claimed that workers from different backgrounds more responsive to customers. Mr. Henning's research supports this position. Mr. Henning states " that racial diversity is a marker for diverse ideas, attitudes and experiences and that having a range of perspectives can alert a company to threats and possibilities.When diverse ideas are shared and not dismissed, the environment changes form the ego of I'm right to the collaboration of what's right. The study also suggests that diversity in the workplace connects closely to Listening, one of the Seven Habits of Effective People by Stephan Covey. Mr. Covey stated, " To be understood, we first understand". If you doubt the wisdom of Mr. Covey's suggestion,reverse the scenario.If an employee seeks first to be understood, he tends to argue and defensively defend his position. An adversary can become a possible enemy.

* When people of color join groups that were formally all white, the entire group begins to think in different ways. The influx of minorities stimulates new thinking patterns. This finding lends credence to the quote: " We find comfort with those we agree with and growth from those who are different". Another great benefit is that diverse ideas minimizes " group think" which favor a status quo mentality. Refusal to change in a competitive market is not competitive.

In my management development work, I have always contended that building relationships an awareness and appreciation of different perspectives. Most importantly, we begin to realize that perspective stems from our individual experiences. Perhaps, the great benefit to diversity in the workplace is that the interdependence of the group results in better solutions!

Diversity brings an eclectic array of talents and points of view to any project, giving it greater potential, making it stronger. This has been shown to be the case in business, and it's also the case in show business.

When people of very different ages come together to make a film, or put on a live show, there is an incredible force that comes into focus as we work together. The experiences of the older members of the group give validity to ideas that have worked before. The younger members of the group catch the direction of those ideas and carry them to fit into yet another incarnation that will entertain a younger audience.

In addition to being savvy about the contemporary audience, the younger members of the group have more muscle to manifest the physical part of the project. Meanwhile the older members will have more savvy about brands of paint or sources of special materials.

In the beginning, age difference is clearly a factor in finding who's going to lead what, however, it doesn't take long to sort out. It's fantastic we all get to see the final product become a successful production.

In my experience, seeking to engage diversity in any project, whether social, ethnic, or age related, will definitely invigorate the creative and/or business process.

Strategy, Product and People -These are the key factors of a successful company.Talking about people, diversity absolutely impacts a company's success without a doubt. Putting together people from different country and background ,and combining their ideas and bringing out the best of unity lead whole sector to success.

People think and act depending upon on the background they are brought up. A team who have well knowledge of all levels of people and their mentality is very important here. Lifestyle of people from different countries are very much different or if to say lifestyle of people form different areas of same country vary so as their ideas.

Best example is Donald Trump's" The apprentice" (I hope most of us watched it at least few episodes)

So it's very much true that diversity impacts a company's success.

Diversity is one of the key factors that will enable a company to truly be successful. Without diversity within a company there will not be success. After all, if we were all clones the world would become stagnant and boring.

Diversity encourages more thought processes in the company. With emerging ideas and suggestions, a company's success will become larger. Employees will work harder because they know that their opinion counts.

Through diversity, delegation of tasks is much easier within a company. Delegation of tasks and project assignments is imperative to a company's success. If everyone only knew how to do one task the company would fail. Additionally, if everyone approached tasks the same way, it will cause failure in the company.

Source: Helium

Skinheads attack, injure two Czech Romanies

A group of unidentified perpetrators, probably skinheads, attacked two Czech Romanies, aged 18 and 23, in an open-air cinema on Friday and injured them, Ivo Vykopal from the local police force told CTK today.

In the assault, the offenders shouted racial insults, Vykopal added.

The younger boy was slightly injured on his face, while the older suffered a fracture of his nose and brain concussion, Vykopal said.

The assailants pushed the older boy to the ground and kicked him, he added.

The perpetrators called the Romanies "black pigs and Gypsy sons of bitches," Vykopal said.

Source: Romea

Iraqi injured in latest racist attack in Germany

Magdeburg, Germany - An Iraqi man was racially abused and beaten with a baseball bat in the third xenophobic attack in Germany in less than a week, police said Sunday. The 36-year-old Iraqi was attacked by an unidentified right-wing extremist in the eastern town of Magdeburg on Friday evening, six days after assaults on eight Indians and two Africans in two other towns.

Police said the suspected neo-Nazi set his dog on the victim and hit him on the back of the head with a baseball bat before fleeing after a witness raised the alarm.

Police said the attacker, who also uttered racial slurs at the Iraqi, faced charges of incitement to racial hatred and aggravated assault.

A 29-year-old German was ordered to be kept in detention on Saturday, following another racist attack on two Africans which put a Sudanese man in hospital on August 18.

The unnamed man was arrested on Friday along with an accomplice, aged 26, who was freed on police bail.

They are accused of beating up the Sudanese and an Egyptian man, following a wine festival in the village of Guntersblum, near the town of Mainz in western Germany.

The Indians were also attacked during a festival on the night of August 18 in the small town of Muegeln in Germany's former communist east.

German Chancellor Angela Merkel condemned the attack as "extremely grim and shameful" and a government spokesman said it was harmful to Germany's image abroad.

The deputy president of the European Commission, Franco Frattini, called for the banning of the neo-Nazi NPD party after the attack in Muegeln.

He said in an interview with the Bild am Sonntag newspaper on Sunday that neo-Nazis represented "a threat" and "an ulcerous cancer for democratic countries like Germany."

Source: EarthTimes

Minutemen Extremists Barred from Hotel

Judge bars Minutemen Extremists

By BRANDON COUTRE - bcoutre@nwherald.com
Comments (No comments posted.)

WOODSTOCK – A McHenry County judge on Thursday ordered an anti-illegal immigration group to stay away from the Crystal Lake Holiday Inn, in part because the group breached its contract with the hotel.

The Illinois Minuteman Project had scheduled a conference for Saturday in Crystal Lake, but hotel management decided to cancel the group’s reservation. Judge Maureen McIntyre affirmed that decision on Thursday.

Minuteman director Rosanna Pulido called the ruling bittersweet.

“While I’m grieved, I’m also happy that every American citizen can see what our country is turning into and what will happen if we don’t wake up and address illegal immigration,” Pulido said.

Suzanne Walters, an attorney for the Minuteman Project, said the hotel was stifling her organization’s right to free speech. But McIntyre said the case had little to do with protected rights.

“I don’t think this question here before the court today boils down to an infringement of [free speech] rights,” she said.

The hotel’s attorneys filed an emergency restraining order request Thursday afternoon.

McIntyre agreed with hotel attorneys that Pulido violated the contract because she wasn’t up front with who she really represented and didn’t provide proper proof of insurance. Pulido signed a contract with the hotel last month, when she identified herself only as the event coordinator for the Sheriff Daniel Beck Immigration Conference.

It wasn’t until another group contacted the hotel about staging a protest to the Minuteman conference that hotel staff members realized that Pulido was the leader of an anti-illegal immigration group, attorneys said.

"They realized they were duped,” said Rita Alliss Powers, one of the hotel’s attorneys. “These meetings have a history of drawing a lot of very visceral reaction and protest.”

The private conference was supposed to host about 100 people to hear Allen County, Ohio, Sheriff Daniel Beck discuss his efforts to identify and seek deportation of illegal immigrants.

The event was set continue as planned until Wednesday, when the Crystal Lake Police Department informed the hotel that it would have to spend up to $3,500 on extra police forces to handle protesters.

Under the contract with the hotel, the Minuteman are supposed to cover the cost of security. But the Minuteman said they would not pay.

“Why don’t the protesters who are causing the problems have to pay for the $3,500?” Pulido asked.

Hotel attorneys said they canceled the Minuteman event because hotel management was worried about the safety of the hotel’s patrons and the hotel's image if guests were to see a SWAT team lingering nearby.

“This is a hotel that has weddings and conferences, and all of the sudden they’re going to have to have armed guards on this property because of this, quote, conference,” Alliss Powers said. “Can you imagine the family that’s just passing through on their vacation and this is the event taking place at the Holiday Inn in Crystal Lake?”

NWHerald

Robber Sentenced to 20 Years

August 24th, 2007 @ 11:32am



(KSL News) A self-proclaimed white-supremacist took time for a racially charged rant before being sentenced to 20 years in prison.

The sentence is in connection with a bank robbery conviction handed down in June.

Jeremiah Gregory robbed a Wells Fargo bank two years ago and claimed he had a bomb.

Before being sentenced Gregory accused the court of treating him harshly because of his race and said retribution for the actions of the judge would be "swift."

Source: KSL

Woman donates car to family affected by vandalism

Virginia Beach Fire investigators nabbed 26-year-old, Hans Stephen Jaborek for torching a family's car and spray painting racially charged messages on it and a front yard fence last Monday. Acting on a tip, authorities arrested Jaborek this morning in Norfolk.



Vandalism victim Judy Brett says, "We're very happy. Now we can get back to our lives." Jaborek was taken to court by the family in recent weeks and convicted of making annoying phone calls. Brett claims he started calling again two weeks ago harassing the family and they went to court again over it. She wonders if revenge played a part because her daughter's two sons are bi-racial.

"We were so scared until they caught him today. I didn't know if he'd try to come back and try to do something else," says Brett.

Jaborek remains at the Virginia Beach Correctional Center without bond. In the meantime, a viewer who wrote WAVY.com about giving Brett a spare vehicle she had - did. Therese Duvall drove a '98 Jeep Cherokee to Brett's home and handed her the keys. "I wanted to help. I saw the story. It touched me. I felt it was the thing to do."



"From the beginning I said there was more good in the community than bad. I've been overwhelmed with my neighbors and people I don't even know. Thank you," said a tearful Brett.

Source: WAVY

Two Lewiston men face hate crime charges

By Annie Bishop / KXLY4 Reporter



LEWISTON -- Two Lewiston men face serious charges for a hate crime after attacking and harassing an African American male in a Zip Trip parking lot on Friday, August 17th.

Police say victim Herman Gary was pushed by 24-year-old Steven Leas after Gary emerged from the convenience store with a sandwich. Leas and 18-year-old Cody Lindell then chased Gary around the parking lot, yelling racial slurs and otherwise harassing him because of the color of his skin.

The two then took off in a pickup truck.

Lewiston’s Interim Police Chief Roger Lanier called the incident “downright frustrating” and said it certainly wouldn’t be tolerated in the Lewiston community.

The two men were captured on the Zip Trip surveillance camera, prompting the father of one of the suspects to turn his son in.

Leas had his first court appearance on Wednesday, charged with Felony Malicious Harassment and two counts of Misdemeanor Battery, while Lindell also faces a felony.

Police Chief Lanier promised that the responsible party would be brought to justice, and warned others against committing racially motivated crimes.

“There’s no room for it; keep it to yourself,” Lanier said. “Lewiston is a diverse place; North Idaho is a diverse area. It’s here for everybody.”

“If you harbor ill will, keep it to yourself,” he reiterated. “We’ll investigate it rapidly and we’ll prosecute it to the fullest extent.”

Source: KXLY

GOP will punish worker for e-mail

By Joe Hallett
THE COLUMBUS DISPATCH
A longtime employee of the Ohio Republican Party will be disciplined for electronically forwarding a racist joke about the Rev. Jesse Jackson, according to the party's chairman.

Robert T. Bennett said yesterday that he likely will suspend Rita Graham, 47, a finance officer, for circulating a racially insensitive e-mail she apparently received from outside GOP headquarters.

"Her inappropriate behavior was forwarding anything like that outside the office and inside the office," Bennett said. "We're going to talk to the entire staff about this. Beyond that, we're going to take some disciplinary action, but we'll keep it as an internal matter."

Jason Mauk, executive director of the state party, said that after getting the e-mail, Graham apparently forwarded it to at least two other employees at GOP headquarters and to some friends outside the building. The e-mail forwarded by Graham contained the "ohiogop.org" Web address.

"It's clearly offensive and inappropriate, and we have no tolerance for the circulation of that type of material, even if it is in jest," Mauk said.

The e-mail, in part, said the following: "Jesse Jackson got out of the shower and was drying off when he looked in the mirror and noticed he was white from the neck up to the top of his head. In sheer panic and fearing he was turning white and might have to start working for a living, he called his doctor and told him of his problem."

It went on to say that the doctor ordered Jackson to drink brown liquid because he was "a quart low" on "bull - - - -."

Bennett said the party annually provides instruction to employees on diversity and racial sensitivity.

It marked the second time in about a year that the state party has been forced to deal with socially intolerant e-mails sent from its headquarters.

In July 2006, Bennett fired Gary Lankford as the party's social conservative coordinator for sending an e-mail that linked its readers to a Web log that questioned the sexual orientation of now-Gov. Ted Strickland and his wife, Frances. Bennett apologized to the Stricklands.

While deploring the content of the e-mail forwarded by Graham, Bennett said that incident was less egregious than the Lankford incident.

"They are entirely different," Bennett said, noting that the e-mail about the Stricklands "was something generated by Lankford and then sent out without my approval."

jhallett@dispatch.com

Source: Dispatch

Firefighters resolve tiff

CANTON A city firefighter and the captain he accused of creating a racially hostile workplace have agreed to put their differences to rest.

The city also is ready to begin its most comprehensive diversity training, which will be mandatory for all firefighters and could lead to more training in other city departments.

Phillip Strickland, a firefighter since 1995, sued the city June 18, accusing Capt. Mike Richmond of creating a hostile environment in September when he used "a tone filled with racial animus and hostility" during an argument about the handling of a fire.

Strickland said the department didn't reprimand Richmond for his remark, and the environment created stress that caused Strickland to score low on a test for promotion to captain.

The city, however, said Richmond, who denied any racial motivations, was disciplined.

Strickland's complaint asked for back pay, punitive damages, attorney fees and costs in excess of $200,000.

He agreed to meet Richmond for a mediation session, where they resolved their differences after four hours.

In a memorandum of understanding signed by Strickland and Richmond on Wednesday, they acknowledged the fight "was disrespectful on both sides."

"We mutually and respectfully resolved our differences and want this to be a positive example for our Fire Department and the Community," the memorandum said.

Canton Assistant Law Director Kris Bates believes the resolution is a "wonderful commentary on what mediation can do and what communication between people can do. ... It's way better to craft your own solution than to have court craft it for you."

Strickland, in an e-mail to The Repository, said he instructed his attorney to drop all legal action.

Source: CantonRep

Racial obscenities heard during drive-by shooting

The Associated Press --

COLUMBUS, Ga. --
Columbus Police said they are investigating whether a drive-by shooting that injured a teenager may have been racially motivated.

The victims of the shooting, who are black, told police two or three white males trailing their vehicle in a pickup truck hollered racial obscenities before firing at least three shots as they traveled west on Manchester Expressway around 11:45 p.m. Thursday.

One bullet struck 18-year-old Kevin Finch in the left side of his head, said Police Lt. Mark D. Starling. He is listed in unsatisfactory condition at a Columbus hospital.

"It happened so fast," said Barry Crane, 21, who was in the car with Finch. He told The Columbus Ledger-Enquirer the group didn't say anything to the attackers, whom they didn't know.

The third person in the car, 18-year-old Demetrius Bell, could not be reached for comment.

Starling said police have determined at least three shots were fired, but are still investigating how many shooters were involved.

Source: Ledger-Enquirer

New racist attack in Germany, Sudanese badly hurt

MAINZ, Germany, Aug 25, 2007 (AFP) - Two Africans were attacked by right-wing extremists last weekend in Mainz, in western Germany, local authorities said Saturday, the same night as a brutal mob assault on eight Indians in the country's former communist east.

Mainz authorities said they delayed releasing the information for a week so as not to hamper the inquiry into the incident, in which a Sudanese man in his 20s was seriously injured.

They said a group of young right-wing Germans had attacked the Sudanese man and an Egyptian on the fringes of a wine festival in Guntersblum in the Rhineland Palatinate region.

The Sudanese man was hit on the head with a bottle and beaten while he was on the ground. The 39-year-old Egyptian, who tried to get help, was also struck with the neck of the bottle.

Local people intervened to rescue the men and three suspects, all in their 20s, were arrested.

The head of the Rhineland-Palatinate regional government and leader of the local Social Democratic Party (SPD), Kurt Beck, called it a cowardly attack.

The Indians were also attacked during a summer festival on Saturday night in the small town of Muegeln. A 50-strong mob of suspected neo-Nazis chased them through the streets of the town and broke down the doors of a pizzeria where they had sought refuge.

Three of the Indians were so brutally beaten they needed hospital treatment while the others escaped with minor cuts and bruises.

The deputy president of the European Commission, Franco Frattini, called for the banning of the neo-Nazi NPD party after the attack in Muegeln.

He said neo-Nazis represented "a threat" and "an ulcerous cancer for democratic countries like Germany" in an interview to appear in the Bild am Sonntag newspaper on Sunday.

"Xenophobis and right-wing extremism is on the rise throughout Europe" but "Germany is one of the five countries which we are most concerned about, along with France, Belgium, Denmark, and alas, my own native country, Italy," Frattini said.

Racist attacks have been common since reunification in east Germany, where the NPD is making a particular push to get established.

German Chancellor Angela Merkel has denounced the mob attack in Muegeln, calling it "deplorable and shameful" that no-one had intervened to stop it and said it had damaged Germany's image abroad.

Source: Sudan

India takes up racist attacks with Germany

India has formally urged the German government to take action against the racist attackers who assaulted eight Indians in Muegein village in the state of Saxony.

Indian Ambassador to Germany Meera Shankar told the German foreign office to “prevent future incidents of the kind”, spokesperson for the Ministry of External Affairs Navtej Sarna said on Tuesday. Indian embassy officials are getting in touch with the victims, Sarna added.
The German government has strongly condemned the violence and informed the embassy that the German Prosecuting Attorney’s office has begun investigations to ensure the culprits are “called to account”, Sarna said.

The Indians were injured after about 50 Germans chased them across a market square early on Sunday in Muegeln, near Leipzig. Police said onlookers shouted slurs such as “foreigners out” and did not help the Indians.

Seventy police officers were needed to restore order after the incident, during which the Indian men sought shelter in a pizza parlour run by an Indian. But they were beaten up by some of the pursuing Germans who kicked in the doors of the building, police said. Two of the Indians were hospitalized. Four assailants and two police officers were also injured. Two suspects were detained after the attack but later released, the police said.

Source: MagnoySamsara

Jewish leader sounds alarm after racist attack in Germany

By Kate Connolly

A LEADING member of Germany’s Jewish community has accused the government of failing to control rightwing extremism following an attack on a group of Indian men in an eastern town.

Stephan Kramer, the general secretary of the Central Council of Jews said that until a nationwide action plan was launched to tackle the problem, attacks on minorities would only get worse.
His remarks followed a brutal attack on eight Indians in the town of Mugeln, near Leipzig, at the weekend.

During a town festival the men were chased through the streets by around 50 young Germans, who hurled abuse at them, including the taunt “foreigners out”.
All of the men were beaten up, one of them seriously.

“Yesterday it was coloured people, today it’s foreigners, tomorrow it’ll be homosexuals and lesbians and maybe Jews,” Kramer told the German daily newspaper Taz.

Prior to the Mugeln incident, police had been braced for trouble in certain east German towns as rightwing extremists commemorated the anniversary of the death of Adolf Hitler’s deputy, Rudolf Hess.

Kramer said that parts of former communist eastern Germany were “no-go” areas, which people who looked foreign should be warned against visiting.

He accused the government of “delivering the same sentiments” every time there was an attack, but failing to produce results with its anti-extremist strategy.

“This isn’t hysteria,” he said. “This is the bitter truth.”

The German chancellor, Angela Merkel, condemned the attacks and pledged to put the issue high on the agenda at a strategy meeting of her grand coalition that began yesterday and ends today.

“It is not acceptable for people in German cities to be chased through the streets and beaten,” she said through her spokesman, Thomas Steg.

There is increasing evidence to suggest that the frequency of far-right attacks is having a detrimental effect on the ability of parts of eastern Germany to attract foreign investment and tourism.

“These no-go areas – so-called foreigner-free zones – really exist and non-Aryans know why they don’t go there,” an expert on rightwing extremism, Anetta Kahane, said. “The fact is that many American or Asian firms that have a mix of employees don’t come to east Germany.”

The Mugeln incident came almost exactly 15 years after a far-right attack on a home for asylum seekers near Rostock, in which 120 people narrowly escaped death. That attack led to a political outcry and closer monitoring of far-right activities.

Prosecutors have said that they were investigating two men from Mugeln, aged 21 and 23, for being behind the recent attack and were looking at charging them for breaching the peace. – Guardian

Source: Gulf-Times

Brentwood Family Shocked By Hate Attack On Home

BRENTWOOD -- A Brentwood family wrestled with their emotions Thursday as they talked about the individuals who ransacked their home, stole their 2007 Nissan SUV and other valuables and spray painted racist hate messages on their walls.

"They just hurt us…the words that they used," said Skiwayi Goolden, who lives in the home with her family. "All of that…It hurts. It hurt us."

Her mother Dorothy Barbee sat nearby, emotions rippling across her face.

"These people don't know how much they hurt people by doing something this stupid." she said. "He (her grandson) was gathering up his mother and father pictures -- he wanted me to take them home because he felt somebody was after them."

At about 2:30 p.m. Wednesday, police responded to a residential burglary in the 500 block of Douglas Drive. The home was ransacked, vandalized and the walls covered in spray paint.

"We've worked hard with our diversity committee and our community to make this a welcoming community," Brentwood police Lt. Tom Hansen. "It's unfortunate someone did something like this."

Hansen also said it is unfortunate that the family has children who have to see this.

The thief or thieves set about mindlessly destroying everything from furniture, to pictures to electronic equipment.

"There was extensive ransacking, it does appear they were in there a long time," Hansen said about the perpetrators.

The suspect or suspects also stole the family's 2007 Nissan Armada sport utility vehicle with license plate 5VWR339.

The incident was being investigated as a hate crime remains under investigation. Anyone with information is asked to call Brentwood police at (925) 634-6911.

Source: FoxReno

West police targeting white supremacists in 'hate crime'

Thursday, August 16, 2007

By Erin Quinn

Tribune-Herald staff writer

West police say they anticipate making between six and 10 arrests in connection with a brutal attack they’re calling a hate crime.

Four of the suspects, West police Detective Kimberly Lucien told the Tribune-Herald, are teenage girls who live in the West area.

Lucien said she believes the group, who reportedly claim to be part of a worldwide white supremacist organization, intended to kill a 28-year-old Hispanic man they met up with Sunday night at a Skinny’s convenience store in West.

The group had never met the man before, she said, but got into a fight with him in the store’s parking lot over something he said about one of the women in the group.

The man, who was with a white friend and the friend’s son, reportedly got into their car and fled the area.

Lucien said they were followed by the group, who forced the fleeing party off the road in a deserted area.

There, she said, they hit, kicked, stomped and cut the Hispanic man.

Lucien declined to name the victim. The attack was stopped, she said, when the victim’s friend and his son accidentally ran the man over with their car, breaking both of his legs. The group of attackers then fled.

Police officers seized a surveillance video from the Skinny’s parking lot and have located a truck that carried some of the attackers, Lucien said. She obtained a search warrant Wednesday but could not be reached for comment later in the day.

A search warrant is not public record until it is executed.

The alleged victim was in a local hospital Wednesday in stable condition.

Lucien said the group told the victim they are members of Aryan Nations, a nationwide white supremacist organization. Its Web site states its members are “arming themselves — not with congratulatory notes from a now nonexistent regional leader, or a flier for the next rally on the footsteps of a myriad of courthouse steps — but with ‘guns, knives, bullets and bombs.’ ”

Lucien said she had never heard of the group’s having a presence in West.

equinn@wacotrib.com

Source: WacoTrib

MINUTEMEN MIGRANT CAMP VANDALISM (UNCUT)

NEW SHOCKING VIDEO SHOWS MINUTEMEN KILLING MEXICAN! UTTERLY DISGUSTING!

State police confirms Bastrop shooter was white supremacist member

By Elizabeth Fitch
efitch@thenewsstar.com

The suspected shooter in the Friday slaying of two Bastrop police detectives belonged to a white supremacist prison gang, Louisiana State Police confirmed today.

Dennis Clem, 24, was a member of the Aryan Circle, according to Troop F spokesman Mark Dennis.

Clem is believed to have shot and killed Bastrop detectives John Smith, 40, and Charles “Chuck” Wilson, 34, at the Budget Inn in downtown Bastrop.

Two ambulance workers were also wounded when they responded to the scene.

Clem’s girlfriend Tonya Smith fled the area, but was arrested Sunday morning in Houston.

She remains in custody in Harris County, Texas.

Source: TheNewsStar

Off-duty Swiss soldiers stop neo-Nazi attack on Africans

GENEVA - A group of off-duty Swiss soldiers rescued three black men from a neo-Nazi attack and pursued the extremists until police arrived, police said Friday. The soldiers happened on the attack early Thursday close to Geneva's main train station. The eight neo-Nazis were verbally abusing and assaulting the African men when the soldiers intervened. Police said the six soldiers shielded the victims and chased the attackers until officers arrived. Four Swiss, three Frenchmen, a Briton and one Frenchwoman ages 18 to 27 were arrested in the attack.

Source: OrlandoSentinel

Brazilian man dies in federal custody

August 9, 2007

PROVIDENCE, R.I. --A Brazilian man who died this week after being picked up on a deportation warrant wasn't given the epilepsy medicine his sister brought to the police station, the woman said.

Edmar Alves Araujo, 34, of Milford, Mass., died Tuesday afternoon after being turned over to Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents by Woonsocket police. Police detained Araujo during a traffic stop after discovering he was wanted on a 2002 deportation warrant, said Paula Grenier, an ICE spokeswoman.

Grenier said Araujo had been in federal custody for a little over an hour when he showed "physical signs of distress" and was taken to Rhode Island Hospital, where he died.

The state medical examiner's office said it was awaiting the results of an autopsy Thursday.

Araujo's sister, Irene Araujo, told The Boston Globe she got a call from her brother and immediately drove to the police station to give police his anti-seizure medication, Gardenal.

"I told them he needed the medication, and I told them he had seizure problems," she said. "He can't skip a day without medication."

Irene Araujo said police refused to take it, saying her brother could tell them if he needed medication. She said a friend tried again to bring the medication to him Wednesday morning, but learned her brother had died.

Woonsocket's police chief did not immediately return a phone message seeking comment Thursday. Grenier declined to comment on Irene Araujo's claims that she told authorities of her brother's condition and need for medication.

Grenier said state and federal authorities would investigate, but state police and the attorney general's office said they were not involved.

Edmar Alves Araujo lived in the United States for about five years and worked at a gas station and as a painter, his sister said. He has a 13-year-old son who lives in Italy.

Source: Boston

Original but edited version of the Minutemen shooting at Mexicans video

This video was reposted by Minutemen terrorist "thecockroachshooter" on August 03, 2007 after he decided to take the video down to remove/edit out certain lines that were said during the video.



Luckily Edzul was fortunate enough to have intercepted the original unedited version of the Minutemen shooting at Mexicans video. A major kudos goes out to Edzul!

For a look at what Edzul managed to intercept click here.

San Diego Minutemen Linked to White Supremacists

by David Holthouse on August 7, 2007

Source: SPLCenter

San Diego’s KPBS-FM, a National Public Radio affiliate, aired a story Aug. 2 detailing the links between the white supremacist activities of two high-profile supporters of the San Diego Minutemen, a nativist extremist group whose bellicose tactics and internal feuding are detailed in the current issue of the Intelligence Report.

The KPBS story revealed that San Diego Minutemen activist Ray Carney worked for 11 years as a computer expert for White Aryan Resistance, a neo-Nazi hate group lead by Tom Metzger. The story also quotes Intelligence Project Director Mark Potok describing the white supremacist tattoos and symbols featured on a MySpace page belonging to Steven Shine, another frequent participant in San Diego Minutemen protests.



Our favorite moment in the KPBS story has Shine being interviewed by the station’s reporter “while restraining a pit-bull at a north county canyon where local Minutemen rallied to evict migrants from outdoor camps.”

Shine took down his MySpace page shortly after the Intelligence Report story came out. But we captured it for our archives before it vanished.

Let’s stop racism

Our Opinion

Courier Editorial Board

How ashamed many of us were this week to discover that actions from someone in our city caused a family to not move here.

We don’t know the family from Chicago — a mom and dad and three kids — but when they first came to visit, they liked what they saw and put a bid on a house on Chester Avenue.

They were dismayed the next day to find the letters “KKK” smeared on the side of a garage wall on their property. They decided not to move here. And decided not to move to Iowa.

While agreeing that there probably are many nice people in Ottumwa, the mother said she didn’t want to risk moving into a neighborhood where her children may be exposed to that type of racism.

Most of us want to think that it is a prank, a random act of vandalism.

And many of us are encouraged by city groups that are working hard to rid the city of graffiti, weedy and junky areas.

A messy lot, though, is different than deliberate vandalism — the kind of hatred exposed by this week’s graffiti.

The Chicago family was black. The letters spray-painted on the building walls had a definite racial tone that would upset anyone, especially blacks. The “KKK” is typically an acronym for the white supremacist group, the Ku Klux Klan.

We are very ashamed that this happened.

It is not a small thing to overlook. It doesn’t matter if kids did it, vandals did it or neighbors did it.

The fact is that it was done, and we lost new citizens because of it.

All of us need to work to stop this kind of action and this kind of attitude.

Our community is thriving because of the mix of cultures we’ve been adding to the town for decades now, from the Southeast Asians of 30 years ago to the recent influx of citizens from Mexico, Central America and other nations.

As one blogger wrote, “It isn’t OK to have even ‘a little racism’ in town.” As a white male, he said that he would think twice before moving to a property that had “Kill Whitey” spray-painted on a garage.

Was this one incident? Maybe. If so, it is one too many.

Our community cannot afford more black eyes. Not now, not when we have so many good things going for us.

If you see such actions taking place, please report them immediately to law enforcement. We all need to work together to protect our homes, our neighborhoods and our city.

There are few things worse than racism. We should not tolerate even once instance.

Source: OttumwaCourier

LEAKED: VIDEO OF MINUTEMEN CAUGHT SHOOTING AT MEXICANS

by Casey Sanchez on August 10, 2007

Source: SPLCenter

The Intelligence Report has obtained a chilling video that Robert Crooks, the leader of the nativist extremist group Mountain Minutemen, recently E-mailed to several other prominent nativist leaders, including Jim Gilchrist, co-founder of the original Minuteman Project. In the E-mail, Crooks suggests that Gilchrist is a weakling who can “Talk the Talk” but not “Walk the Walk.”

“This video shows how to keep a ‘Home Depot’ parking lot empty,” Crooks (right) wrote in his sneering July 26 E-mail, titled “Homeland Defence.” Gilchrist, whose organization had earlier provided Crooks’ group with supplies, responded by banning Crooks from contact with his own group.

Filmed through a night-vision scope, the four-minute video shows two or three men standing on a hill that appears to be on the Mexican side of the border, beyond a barbed-wire fence. “All right, come on across, motherfuckers,” a man says off camera in a quiet voice. “Yeah, go that way. I dare you to go that way. That’s my fucking trail, bitch!”

Then, after muttering about the distant figures being “cockroaches,” the man shouts out loud, “Hey putos [“faggots”], one, two, three!” Next comes the distinct sound of a shotgun shell being chambered, followed by a sudden flash of light and the sound of a shotgun blast. The direction of the gunfire is unclear.

The Mountain Minutemen is one of several armed Minutemen spinoffs now active on the U.S.-Mexico border in the rugged desert between Campo, Calif. and Jacumba, Calif. Crooks has a reputation as a particularly hard-line nativist, and his group is believed to be tiny.

When the camera pans back to the hilltop, the men are gone. “And that’s how you get rid of Mexicans,” the narrator says with a laugh, before concluding with an apology for the shaky camera work. “Sorry folks, it’s kind of hard to shoot a shotgun and a video at the same time.”

In an E-mail to Hatewatch, Crooks (below) said he did not film the video and is not the narrator.

Save Our State is dead. Will MCDC be next?

State police speak out against hate crimes

BOWERS BEACH, Del. (AP) -
Six state police officials, including Colonel Thomas MacLeish, attended a press conference today at a bridge where racist graffiti was found.

MacLeish says the perpetrators are subject to arrest if they're caught.

The graffiti was discovered by residents of Dover's House of P.R.I.D.E., who were on their way to a fishing trip in Bowers Beach.

State officials called today's news conference to confront hate crimes, which they say are still a problem in Delaware.

House of P.R.I.D.E. Director Marian Harris says black men from the rehabilitation program used to go fishing three or four times a week. But she says only white men have been going fishing since the racist words and illustrations were spotted on the bridge.

Delaware Department of Transportation employees painted over the images and words today after the press conference.

Source: WMDT

Man faces battery charge

LEESBURG - A 21-year-old man attacked a man at a traffic light Friday night and used a racial slur when yelling at him, police said.

Justin Gaskins, of Lady Lake, got out of his truck and punched the driver in the car next to him through an open window at U.S. Highway 27 and U.S. Highway 441, Leesburg police Lt. Rob Hicks said.

Gaskins called the victim, 67-year-old Ernest Strozier, who is black, a racial slur and continued to make racist remarks while in police custody, according to an arrest affidavit.

Gaskins was charged with burglary, battery on a person 65 years old or older and resisting arrest.

He was held Tuesday at Lake County Jail with bail set at $35,500.

Martin E. Comas and Katie Fretland contributed to this report.

Source: OrlandoSentinel

10- and 13-Year-Old Girls Suspected in Vandalism Spree

By: Markham Evans

North Stafford, VA - Stafford County investigators say two girls, aged 10 and thirteen, are suspects after a vandalism spree last week in Spring Lake Farms, a North Stafford subdivision.

Residents awoke the morning of Tuesday, July 31, to find racist and insulting graffiti spray-painted on vehicles. Victims say some of the graffiti was misspelled.

"Yeah, using the 'n-word' was bad enough," said Anthony Brisueno, whose vehicle was targeted. "Then I had a problem with it because it was spelled a different way... it was really a prank."

Neither suspect was identified because of their age. The 13-year-old has been charged with eight offenses and taken to the Rappahannock Regional Juvenile Detention Facility. Investigators say charges are pending against the ten year old.

Source: News8

Racist attacks on hispanincs in Carpentersville?

Deputy arrested, accused of extorting Mexican motorists

SAN ANTONIO (AP) -- A La Salle County sheriff's deputy has been accused of extorting Mexican motorists, threatening them with detention if they didn't pay him immediately.

Henry James Jr., 45, was arrested Tuesday on a complaint of extortion under the color of official right. He pleaded not guilty in federal court in Laredo on Wednesday. The case must be presented to a grand jury in the next 30 days.

A motorist stopped on Interstate 35 complained to the sheriff's office that James required him to pay a fine immediately or be detained.

Sheriff Victor Villarreal said in a statement that the department used its GPS technology to document several cases in which James stopped vehicles but didn't call dispatchers. Four motorists complained of being stopped and asked for fines of $120 to $300 from June 30 to July 22. They told authorities they paid James.

Two undercover FBI agents posing as Mexican motorists on July 25 and 28 were stopped by James for disregarding a stop sign on the access road of Interstate 35, according to the criminal complaint.

The agents recorded James telling them that because they were Mexican, they had to pay him $150 or be detained until a judge could see them.

James' arrest follows several other high-profile accusations against South Texas law enforcement officials.

Former La Salle County Sheriff Robbie Thomas and former deputy Joseph Canales were indicted in November on charges of aggravated perjury and tampering with evidence, respectively, for the handling of drugs in an evidence room.

And two veteran Laredo police officers were charged last month with accepting bribes from illegal gambling operations.

Source: The Monitor

Romney's Immigration Hypocrisy Highlights GOP Problem with Hispanics: Mitt Flips While the Rest Just Stay Away

Mitt Romney this weekend dusted off his immigration hypocrisy in a blatant effort to smooth talk Hispanic voters into ignoring his anti-immigrant and anti-Hispanic rhetoric. After spending months railing against immigrants, demanding English-only education, and complaining that our immigration policies allow too many unskilled laborers into the country, Romney reversed course, praising Hispanics in remarks to the Republican National Hispanic Assembly’s annual convention. As the Associated Press reported, "Despite his harsh anti-immigrant rhetoric on the trail, Romney praised Hispanics as 'quintessentially American,' the former Massachusetts governor said the nation's immigration policy should help open doors for people with such strong beliefs." (Associated Press, 7/22/07)

While Romney used his Republican National Hispanic Assembly remarks to try to trick Hispanics into voting for him despite his anti-immigrant record, none of the other Republican candidates even bothered to show up. This follows the failure of 9 out of the 10 GOP candidates to address the National Association of Latino Elected Officials last month.

As the Republican bash and ignore Hispanics, Hispanic voters are rejecting them. A recent USA Today/Gallup Poll showed that "Hispanics, by nearly 3 to 1, say they're Democrats or lean that way." According to the poll, while only "11% of Hispanics now identify themselves as Republicans, down from 19% in 2005...the proportion who call themselves Democrats has jumped to 42% from 33%." As the poll noted, when including independents who 'lean' toward a specific party, "Democrats lead Republicans among Hispanics 58% to 20%." [USA Today, 6/27/07]

"Smooth talking Mitt Romney may think Hispanics are gullible enough to be tricked into ignoring his anti-immigrant rhetoric on the campaign trail, but he and his party are not going to win over Hispanic voters based on their records," said Democratic National Committee spokesman Luis Miranda. "Republicans like Mitt Romney have made clear the Republican Party just doesn't seem to want Hispanics in their Party or even in the country. Unlike the Republican Party's divisive and meanspirited agenda, Democrats are working on an agenda to fix the GOP's failed and flawed policies on everything from immigration to Iraq to the economy."

Mitt Romney’s Anti-Immigrant Record

Romney Panders to Conservative Base by Opposing Immigration Bill. “The record shows Romney repeatedly has demanded stronger border security. A campaign ad calls for tamper-proof identification cards. And in a debate last week, he said illegal immigrants need to go back to their home country and ''get in line'' before they can become citizens. ‘That's exactly what's on the table. All of those things are part of the immigration package,’ said Marshall Fitz, spokesman for the American Immigration Lawyers Association, a nonpartisan organization of lawyers and professors. ‘Romney and the other candidates who continue to beat their chests against this legislation are just playing to the conservative base.’” [Miami Herald, 5/25/07]

Romney Called for English Only Education. Just days before he began airing Spanish language ads in Florida promoting his appearance at the Miami Dade Republican Lincoln Day Dinner, Romney went before a right wing audience at CPAC and told them: "You strengthen the American people by...insisting that the children who come legally to this land are taught in English." Romney also said, "There is a wide open walk across the border for those who have neither skills nor education." [Mitt Romney, Remarks to CPAC Conference, 3/2/07]

Bashes Hispanics. In an op-ed in the Miami Herald, a Republican activist pointed out that, in his address to the Conservative Political Action Conference, “Romney said, ‘There is a wide open walk across the border for those who have neither skills nor education.’ This is a blatant attack on Hispanics. It is stereotypical, denigrating and wrong.” [Miami Herald, 3/9/07]

Source: Democrats.org

Orchard blaze may have been a ‘hate crime'

By Denise Bonura The Record Herald


Flames consume a shed at Knouse Orchards early Saturday morning.

QUINCY - The Saturday blaze at Knouse Orchards on Mentzer Gap Road has been ruled an arson, and officials think it could be a hate crime.

“This is just a theory, but I think they could be targeting the migrant workers,” said Trooper Jeff Sarver, fire marshal with Pennsylvania State Police in Chambersburg. “In another incident around the same time last year, arsonists targeted a building (at Knouse Orchards) where the migrants would sleep.”

Trooper Pat McKenna, the fire marshal in York County, ruled Saturday morning's blaze at Knouse was intentionally set, but Sarver said there are no suspects at this time.

The blaze that began at 2:22 a.m. destroyed a barn that contained wooden crates and orchard equipment. The damage was estimated at $130,000.

“It was (likely) a person passing by (who set the fire), and it was probably lit with matches or a lighter. There was no indication of any gasoline used,” McKenna added.

Sarver said the people who set the fire at the same time last year have not been caught, and he believes they may be responsible for the latest blaze.

“A newer model red truck and three people - a heavy-set white woman and two men - were seen fleeing from the area (Saturday),” he added. “It's just coincidental that the fire occurred in the same place and around the same time two years in a row.”

Sarver said the shed that was destroyed was close to a housing unit the migrant workers use. He said the workers are currently in Florida preparing to come back for the apple-picking season, which runs from the middle of August to October.

Anyone with information about the fire is asked to call Sarver at 264-5161. He said the report will likely be filed with Franklin County Crime Stoppers, and a reward leading to the conviction and arrest of the suspects will be offered.

Recent incidents

Sarver said there have been four fires at Knouse Orchards in the last year. The two were considered arson-related. In July 2006, Sarver said a garage or storage facility for apples was set on fire with some flares. Sometime in 2007, the sleeping quarters for the migrants was set on fire. Sarver did not have the date or details on the 2007 fire.

Milton Knouse, production manager for the Franklin County division of Knouse Fruitlands Inc., could not be reached for comment this morning.

Hate crimes

Nancy Runyan with Fruitbelt Farmworker Christian Ministry based in Gardners said many similar incidents go unreported, and many may think racial and ethnic hate crimes don't occur in this country these days.

“You don't necessarily notice it unless you experience it,” she added. “If you're white, you don't have to deal with it.”

She said the Hispanic population in Adams County has received ill-treatment from many residents. She said she does not know how they have been treated in Franklin County.

“We left Adams County about five years ago because it was so bad,” she said. “I used to work in the schools there, and people there were very prejudiced toward Mexicans.”

“Our house was egged because we worked with the migrants,” she added. “We also adopted two little black boys, and our house was egged every weekend. It was horrible.”

Runyan and her husband, Pastor Roddy Runyan, visit the migrant camps in Franklin, Adams and Cumberland counties and “help them (the workers) with whatever they need.”

She said they provide the workers with sweatshirts, toiletries, blankets, Bible studies and translation at doctor appointments, among other needs.

There are currently 100 migrant farm labor camps in Adams County and only 12 remaining in Franklin County. Four of them are in the Waynesboro area - two on Buttermilk Road, one on Hess Benedict Road and the Knouse Orchard on Mentzer Gap Road in Quincy Township. Pastor Roddy Runyan said the Knouse Orchard is the largest migrant camp in the Waynesboro area. It employs 45 migrants.

The other farm labor camps in Franklin County are located on Letterkenny Road and Scotland Road in Chambersburg, Mountainbrook Road in St. Thomas, Mount Rock Road in Shippensburg and Tanyard Hill Road in Orrstown.

Statistics

In 2004, the FBI reported that 53.8 percent of hate crimes in the U.S. were race-related. According to the report, 51.5 percent of then were committed by people with anti-Hispanic views.

Pennsylvania reported 105 hate crimes in 2004, according to the FBI's report.

Trooper Ed Asbury of Pennsylvania State Police did not return phone calls about Franklin County hate crime statistics.

A 2003 census showed that 1.8 percent of Franklin County's population is Hispanic. Adams County listed a 3.6 percent Hispanic population in 2003. Nancy Runyan said during the height of apple picking, between 7,000 and 10,000 migrant workers flock to Adams, Franklin and Cumberland counties for work. She said most come from Mexico, while others hail from Texas, Haiti and Jamaica.

Source: TheRecordHerald

Hate crimes in Longview?

By Thacher Schmid
Jul 31, 2007 - 11:49:24 pm PDT


Photo by Roger Werth
Armando Vazquez and Linda Miller Vazquez stand by the front gate of their Highlands home, displaying a bandana which contains both U.S. and Mexican flags. Before July 22's vandalism, the front of their home displayed both U.S. and Mexican flags.

Sometime early on the morning of July 22, someone crept up to the Highlands-area home of Armando Vazquez and tore down and stole his Mexican flag, along with the pole.

An American flag posted on the house was untouched.

The theft and vandalism is one of two crimes against Latinos that took place within an hour of each other that weekend. The other was an assault involving three white men who allegedly beat two Latino men in the 700 block of Tennant Way at 11:30 p.m. July 21.

Although Longview police do not believe the two incidents are related, they are treating the assault as an anti-Hispanic hate crime and are considering the flag theft a possible hate crime.

At the very least, the flag theft robbed Vazquez of some of his peace of mind.

"It's scary because you are sleeping and you never know who going to be coming in your house," he said.

Longview police caution that the flag incident shouldn't be blown out of proportion.

"The only racially motivated factor was that it was a Mexican flag," Longview police Detective Sgt. Mike Hallowell said. "That's the only indication; there was no other vandalism to indicate it was racially motivated."

"There is no way to know if this is really a hate crime," said Detective Doug Kazensky. "I would caution people against making that leap."

Still, Victoria Horman, 44, said she witnessed the crime and insists the person picked on Vazquez because he is Latino.

"I think it was a racial thing, I really do," said Horman, who lives next to Vazquez in the 200 block of 27th Avenue.

Horman, a Caucasian, said she heard a noise around 12:30 a.m. that Sunday and looked out her window to see a young "white boy" carrying a stick or pole, walking quickly toward the Vazquez home. Horman said he was probably about 21 years of age, tall and thin and dressed in baseball clothing, including cap, cleats and jacket.

He opened the gate, she said, and walked up to the front of the Vazquez home, where she couldn't see him from her window. She heard a "big old bang," then the perpetrator ran away. She didn't notice him carrying the flag.

"He knew what he was going there for, and why," Horman said. "It wasn't random."

The original police report, by officer Deborah Johnson, listed the crime as a "possible anti-Hispanic hate crime."

Horman was not initially interviewed by Longview police even though Vazquez said he told police Horman witnessed the crime. Tuesday, Horman said an officer was at her home interviewing her, after a reporter told police details of Horman's statement.


Humble roots, north and south

Vazquez, 43, and wife of three years, Linda Vazquez, 53, met at Community House on Broadway, the Longview homeless shelter, about five years ago. They've come a long way since then, but they're no strangers to adversity -- including previous burglaries.

Armando Vazquez is a Mexican citizen with a work permit or green card. He says he plans to apply for U.S. citizenship. Linda Vazquez is a Canadian-born U.S. citizen. They're paying a mortgage on a humble home -- with five decorous sombreros hanging on the wall -- mostly on what Armando Vazquez makes painting and as a handyman.

During one past break-in, Vazquez said, the perpetrator dumped all his fish food into the tank, killing 15 fish. A musician who has drums and other instruments, he was once visited by police responding to a noise complaint, but sees 27th Avenue as a friendly community, and tries to be the proverbial good neighbor.

"They need some help, I don't say no," he said, smiling.

Vazquez said he has been targeted for his heritage before, about three months ago by the Safeway on Ocean Beach.

"I hear some people before say 'wetback, go back to Mexico,' " Vazquez said. "I stopped and I say, 'Did you see me cross the river?' He said, 'No.'

"I say, 'If you weren't on the other side of the river with a towel to dry my back, then I don't got a wet back,' " Vazquez said. "I live here. I work here. I stay here."

The flagpole taken from Vazquez's home was made of PVC tubing and, like the wooden U.S. flagpole on the other side of the front door, attached to the house with nails and duct tape. Vazquez said he now wants to buy a 15-foot metal pole for his yard and fly both U.S. and Mexican flags.

"He going to have to bring a ladder in the middle of the night," he said of potential future vandals. Linda Vazquez said she's probably going to add a Canadian flag, as well.

Vazquez said he would never fly Mexico's tricolor above the Stars and Stripes.

"I don't like to put only Mexican flag there on the top -- I put always, both," Vazquez said.

While there are different interpretations of international flag protocol, it's generally accepted that the flags of two or more nations during peacetime should be flown on separate flagpoles, with the home nation at least as high as the other nations, according to the National Flag Foundation and other Web sites. Vazquez's display appeared to meet the criteria.


Police believe assault was a hate crime

In the July 21 assault, the two victims were Latino and the suspects used language that would indicate this was a hate crime, Longview police said. One of the victims was punched in the face and was struck with a baseball bat.

At approximately 11:30 p.m. July 21, Longview police responded to a fight in progress near Speedy Mart, 704 Tennant Way. A witness told dispatchers three white men were fighting with a Hispanic man, dragging him toward Seventh Avenue while another Hispanic man tried to intervene. The witness said there was a bat or some kind of stick involved in the fight. The three white men left the scene on foot in the direction of the Quality Inn before officers arrived.

Officer Mike Berndt said when he drove up, he saw three men who ran through a field when they saw his car. He said two of them wore blue jeans and boots and had shaved heads. One wore a white sleeveless T-shirt and the other wore a black jacket over a white shirt.

Police arrested the man in the black jacket, Chance Lynn Smith, 22, of Longview. Victims identified him as being one of the suspects in the assault. He was booked into jail but has been released pending further investigation. The other two suspects have not been apprehended.

Anyone with information that can help detectives with the investigation is encouraged to call 442-5800 and ask for Detective Sgt. Mike Hallowell or Detective Terry Reece.

A wider trend?

Racially motivated assaults and thefts are less common in the local area than vandalism. A mixed-race Kelso couple was targeted with racist vandalism on Sept. 27, 2005, when someone spray-painted racist slurs on their back door, cut the phone line and threw three large rocks through their window.

Police said recent crimes that included an ethnic or racial component tended to be minor vandalism, such as spray-painted swastikas, or brochures with white power slogans. Gang graffiti is not uncommon.

The federal Department of Justice's Web site defines a hate crime as "intended to hurt and intimidate someone because of their race, ethnicity, national origin, religious, sexual orientation, or disability. The purveyors of hate use explosives, arson, weapons, vandalism, physical violence, and verbal threats of violence to instill fear in their victims."

Courtney Langner, director of the Ethnic Support Council, said she's heard reports of "a lot of tagging, graffiti, broken windows, more vandalism" with anti-Hispanic implications during her two years at the council.

"I think it's significant and I think it's telling," Langner said of the flag incident. "No person was harmed, but I think it's an expression of general sentiment, and if it is an expression of general sentiment, then it's still disappointing."

"We do have a population that believes it's okay to do these things," said Woodland mayor and Longview police officer Doug Monge, who is Latino. "This one, to me, didn't rise to the level it's being elevated to."

Reporter Leslie Slape contributed to this story.

Source: The Daily News Online

Hate in the immigration debate

The winners write the history. And now that border restrictionists have won the battle to scuttle immigration reform, the history that many are desperate to write is that the debate was colorblind.

Really. The restrictionists and those pundits who have taken up their cause claim that race and ethnicity aren't even part of the discussion and that those who oppose giving illegal immigrants a shot at legal status would feel the same way if the immigrants were coming from Canada instead of Mexico. They say their concerns are limited to border security and the rule of law, and have nothing to do with nativism or xenophobia. And they reject any suggestion that the debate was hostile to Hispanics.

This is the fable being spun by CNN's Lou Dobbs, a commentator labeled by New York Times columnist David Leonhardt as "the heir to the nativist tradition that has long used fiction and conspiracy theories as a weapon against the Irish, the Italians, the Chinese, the Jews and, now, the Mexicans." In recent days, Dobbs has argued that the Senate compromise died because Americans of all colors dispassionately concluded that it was bad for the country. Racism played no role, he insists.

Most Hispanics feel differently. I've seen three different surveys, including one by the Pew Hispanic Center, where majorities of Hispanics say that the immigration debate has led to an increase in anti-immigrant sentiment. And, as I travel the country speaking to Hispanic groups, one thing I hear is that "anti-immigrant" rapidly morphed into "anti-Hispanic" and specifically "anti-Mexican."

I get evidence of that every day in my e-mail. Just last week, after I defended the prosecution of two Border Patrol agents, a reader called me a "dirty Latino" who needs to get "back to Mexico." Another writer called me an "anchor baby" - the term used by nativists to describe the children of illegal immigrants born in the United States. Never mind that I was born in the United States and my parents were born in the United States. What I see here is racism.

That's also the view of the National Council of La Raza, which recently wrapped up its annual conference in Miami Beach. Speakers included Democratic presidential candidates Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama. Clinton said the immigration debate has become "venomous." Obama, quoting from a 1968 telegram that the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. sent to farm worker leader Cesar Chavez, said that Hispanics and African-Americans were "brothers in the fight for equality" and decried the "racism" that crept into the immigration debate.

For some reason, Dobbs took those remarks personally. He responded by poking at Clinton and Obama on his show, insisting that they were insulting the American people.

And he really went ballistic when NCLR Vice President Cecilia Munoz said that much of the immigration debate was driven by a "discomfort with Latinos" and the Senate had caved into "what was largely a wave of hate."

That prompted Dobbs to blast the NCLR as a "socio-ethnic centric group."

I'd quibble with Munoz. I don't think it was just hate that drove the immigration debate, although according to the Southern Poverty Law Center, hate crimes against Latinos and immigrants are on the rise while hate groups use the immigration issue as a recruitment tool. Just last week, the SPLC filed a lawsuit against the Imperial Klans of America - an offshoot of the Ku Klux Klan - and five Klansmen, claiming that two members were recruiting for the group at a county fair in Kentucky when they beat up and kicked a 16-year-old Hispanic boy and called him a racial epithet. The boy, who suffered cracked ribs and other injuries, is a U.S. citizen of Panamanian descent.

But this isn't really about hate as much as it is fear and ignorance. And ironically, one of the things fueling it is people like Dobbs.

"America has a long history of men like Lou Dobbs," Morris Dees, co-founder of the SPLC, said during a recent conference call with journalists. "Men like Sen. Joseph McCarthy who prey on the public fears. Often, they're xenophobic demagogues."

The people who buy into this demagoguery say the country is being colonized. That harkens back to what Benjamin Franklin said in the 1700s about German immigrants making up "a colony of aliens."

A lot of what Franklin said about the Germans was rank bigotry. The same goes for what other generations of Americans would later say about Italians, Irish, Jews and other immigrants - even if they came legally.

What poison. Thank goodness we got that out of our system.

Source: CoshoctonTribune

Low turnout at white supremacist rally

Updated: Aug 4, 2007 05:29 PM

KALAMAZOO -- Police say Saturday's rally was quiet compared to past rallies.

Around 200 people came out, mostly protesters. That number not comparing to over 400 officers on duty.

It helped, they say, to let the rally take place in the parking lot of Kalamazoo Department of Public Safety where they could easily take control of any situation.

The tapes and gates were in place early Saturday morning.

Police officers filed in to man their stations. Many more located at street corners all over Kalamazoo.

A white supremacist group was set to rally at 1:00 p.m. Saturday.

Bashun Bransn told 24 Hour News 8 he came out to see what it was all about.

"I just look at the stupidity and go back and get on the track. This is just disgusting to me," Bransn said.

He says he'll use what he hears to try and teach a message about peace through music as Bransn is a rapper.

While others looked on, the words of radio talk show host Hal Turner, the man leading the rally, rang through a vacant parking lot.

"Behavior is the reason this rally has to occur," Turner said. "The city of Kalamazoo has a problem with black gangs."

It's a message Turner has sent e-mails about trying to get publicity.

Saturday his words were only heard for an hour.

Some people, however, ignored those words completely. Across town a peace rally where families came together.

"The ones for unity in the community are out here," Yolanda Neals told 24 Hour News 8.

The numbers cut down on the numbers in town at the rally, something police are thankful for.

"It couldn't have gone any better as far as the number of people that showed up an the control we've seen so far," said Captain Joe Taylor of Kalamazoo Department of Public Safety.

Two people were arrested. One for Resisting & Obstructing an officer and another for Interfering with an officer, in the aftermath of the event.

While they're pleased with the low turn-out, they say this is not over yet. They will be following up in town all evening to make sure there are no problems between the white supremacist group and protesters.


Source: WoodTV

RACISTA

By 88sNemesis

Pitt Co. Woman In Shock After Getting Racist Email From Local Business

Woman Wants Answers After Accidentally Being Copied Into A Racist Email About Her Resume

By Seth Browning



On the hunt for a job, and armed with a business degree, Tabitha Ross says she was up for anything, except, for a recent email, (quoting email) “I think she may be black. Was a McDonald’s cashier for 5 years."

The ECU grad says she sat in shock, “I’ve never seen racism or discrimination in my face like that.”, after she was accidentally copied an internal email, from Scott Chamblee's e mail address, “They didn't look at previous work experience. They didn't look at look at my current job. Anything. Just for working at McDonald’s. I must obviously be black."

Ross emailed back. She got a reply from Mr. Chamblee, saying it was a "tragic mistake," and not from him, but from another employee, who was later fired.

Nine on your side went to talk to Mr. Chamblee at Richard Cox CPA. An unidentified employee said Chamblee wasn't there. However he did say the company was taking it seriously. Seth: “Have other people involved in this email been addressed as well?" Employee: “Correct. I mean that's what the stipulation of someone being let go is all about."

But Ross wants more, “I want a name. I want to know what they were thinking." Meantime she says she's bouncing back, but wondering if something other than her resume is standing her way.

Source: WNCT

LA Town Chops Down “Racist” Tree - The Jena 6

Black Teens' Case Intensifies Racial Issues

By Darryl Fears
Washington Post Staff Writer
Saturday, August 4, 2007; A03

JENA, La. -- Here in the woodsy heart of Louisiana, town leaders were looking for a fresh start, a way to erase the recent memory of Jim Crow-like hangman's nooses dangling from a shade tree at the local high school. So they cut the tree down.

But after the events of the past 12 months, that attempt by white officials about two weeks ago to heal the town's deep racial divide before the start of a new school year might be too little, too late.

A few weeks after the nooses were discovered in September, an arsonist torched a wing of Jena High School. Race fights roiled the town for days, culminating in a schoolyard brawl that led the LaSalle Parish district attorney to charge six black teenagers with attempted murder for beating up a white teenager who suffered no life-threatening injuries.

Mychal Bell, the first of the six to be tried, is scheduled to be sentenced in September. He was convicted in July by an all-white jury on reduced charges of aggravated battery and conspiracy to commit it. Like his co-defendants -- Robert Bailey, Carwin Jones, Bryant Purvis, Theodore Shaw and Jesse Beard -- Bell had no prior criminal record.

He faces up to 22 years in prison, and civil rights advocates say the reduced charges were still excessive and did not fit the crime. "Can they really do this to me?" Bell asked recently, sitting in his jail cell looking frightened and numb.

The white teenager who was beaten, Justin Barker, 17, was knocked out but walked out of a hospital after two hours of treatment for a concussion and an eye that was swollen shut. He attended a ring ceremony later that night.

District Attorney Reed Walters said in December that his decision to prosecute the black teenagers to the full extent of the law had nothing to do with race. He would not comment further on the case while it is pending. But black residents in Jena said issues of race permeate their town, 230 miles northwest of New Orleans.

Civil rights advocates say the issues are much larger than Jena. Zealous prosecutions of black youngsters are multiplying across the nation, they say. They cite three highly visible cases in which white prosecutors won prison sentences of up to 10 years against black teenagers, only to have those sentences voided on appeal.

In Douglas County, Ga., Genarlow Wilson was convicted of molestation and sentenced to 10 years for engaging in consensual sex with a 15-year-old girl when he was 17. He served more than two years before a judge voided the sentence, but Wilson, now 21, remains in prison while the state appeals.

Also in Georgia, the state Supreme Court threw out the conviction of Marcus Dixon, 19, who was serving a 10-year prison sentence for having sex with an underage white girl in 2003.

In Paris, Tex., a special conservator ordered the release of Shaquanda Cotton, 16, who was serving up to seven years for shoving a white teacher's aide in 2005. Months earlier, the same white judge had given probation to a 14-year-old white girl who burned down her family's home.

"We are seeing two systems of justice: one system of justice for white folks and one system of justice for black folks," said Jordan Flaherty, an editor who is following the Louisiana case for Left Turn magazine, an liberal activist publication based in New York.

"If this had been a fight between only black students, there would not have been this penalty," said Flaherty, who is white. "This is not a group of kids with a history of trouble, but they do have a history of speaking out."

Liz Ryan, chief executive of the Washington-based Campaign for Youth Justice, said Flaherty's observations are supported by research. Black youths represented 28 percent of juvenile arrests and 58 percent of youths sent to adult prisons between 2002 and 2004, according to a study by the campaign titled "And Justice for Some: Differential Treatment of Minority Youth in the Justice System."

"Kids of color are much more likely to be sent to adult courts than white kids," Ryan said. "It's the greatest disparity in the juvenile justice system."

The parents of the victim, David and Kelli Barker, told reporters they are tired of the attention generated by the case and declined to comment. But in a June interview with the Daily Town Talk newspaper in nearby Alexandria, La., David Barker said the prosecution was fair.

"All you hear is, 'Justice for the Jena Six.' I wouldn't mind justice for the one," he said. "It doesn't matter the race -- what matters is what happened to our son."

Jena sits on a winding state highway, a sleepy rural outpost. Once upon a time, it was Ku Klux Klan country. But, "in the past 50 years, our little town has come a long way," said school board member Billy Wayne Fowler. He said white people in the town are no longer racist, but he acknowledged that black people were mistreated in the past.

Black residents said the tying of the nooses was evidence that race relations have not improved that much. They said the superintendent's decision to hand only a three-day suspension to the white students who tied the nooses, overriding the principal's decision to expel them, sparked the anger that led to the disturbance.

The chain of events began at the start of school last September. At an assembly that kicked off classes, a black freshman asked the white principal if black students could sit under "the white tree" -- a shade tree where only white students regularly sat. The answer was, "You can sit anywhere you want."

But when black students showed up in the broiling hot yard, they found three nooses hanging from the tree's branches. After a number of scuffles, the district attorney came to the school and gathered students for a tough talk.

"I can make your life go away with the stroke of a pen," they recalled him saying. Black students said he looked directly at them. Walters denied it.

The incident was never reported to police, said U.S. Attorney Donald W. Washington. A report might have triggered a hate-crime investigation, although federal authorities rarely go after juveniles for such crimes. Washington added that if the students had been expelled, tensions might have been eased and the violence avoided.

In the weeks that followed, the fighting continued. In one scuffle, Robert Bailey, one of the six teenagers now facing trial, said a white man broke a beer bottle over his head after jumping him at a party, but there was no immediate investigation. Months later, Justin Sloan, who is white, was charged with simple battery and given probation for that attack.

Bailey was involved in a second incident when he and friends spotted one of his attackers at a gas station. As Bailey and his friends approached, they said, the white teenager ran to his truck and brandished an unloaded shotgun at them. Bailey helped wrest the weapon away, refused to give it back and was charged with stealing the gun.

Days later came the school fight that led to the prosecutions. Sheriff Carl Smith said the crimes justified the charges.

"It's gotten into the media, and the media has spread it all over the United States that this is about race when it's not about race," he said.

Black parents strongly disagree.

"It's always been about race in Jena. Once you're here, you learn to deal with what happens," said Caseptla Bailey, Robert Bailey's mother. "Some of the things that have gone on, we allowed to go on. It's just gotten to a point that people were ready to stand up and fight."

Source: WashingtonPost

Man Exposed After Denying KKK Affiliations

By Ken Ward

(07/30/07 -- HENDERSON) - For several weeks, the man accused of chasing a Henderson couple at gunpoint, has denied being a member of the Ku Klux Klan.

However, hours after speaking out, Eyewitness News obtained audio of a man who appears to be Anthony Finch, talking on a radio show organized by a white supremacist group, the National Socialist Workers Party.



The National Socialist Workers Party is reportedly the same group that has been sending out a mass mailing, threatening leaders of the NAACP.

The group has been printing out fliers urging Euro-Americans to aid a man at the heart of a racial incident. And it hasn't stopped with a flier.

The group is also on radio defending their decision to threaten NAACP leadership, which NAACP leaders want stopped.

"We see this as an uptake, as an escalation. And we take it as a threat against all NAACP and all people of good will," Rev. William Barber said.

The controversy started last month when Finch chased a black couple at gunpoint.

Police say the incident brings to attention whether Finch is a member or has been a member of the Klan.

"I've been a member of the Henderson Police Department and that's it for 23 and a half years, till I got sick and now I'm disabled," Finch claims.

Nevertheless, audio from a radio talk show, a man identifying himself as Anthony Finch of Henderson North Carolina spoke with a member of the national social workers party.

"What about your local Klan, the radio host said.

"What the Klan is doing here is pretty much inviting, trying to get people to help me here. I'm trying to get activists to help me here," Finch responded. "Everybody sees that because it's a white on black affair they don't want to get involved. Really I feel like a t shirt on a clothes line. Hung out to dry.

The NAACP says its time for state leaders to step in.

"This is not America. We cannot be concerned about terrorism over yonder and not be concerned about domestic terrorism here in our own back yard," Barber said.

The NAACP has also reported the threat to the FBI, an investigation is reportedly underway.

Source: ABCLocal

14 named in Nevada prison white supremacist gang bust

Update:

The group of men accused of organizing a white-supremacist gang in the Nevada state prison system were arraigned in federal court Friday morning.

Seven of the fourteen men appeared in front of a judge and entered not guilty pleas to a number of charges including fraud, extortion, drugs, and murder. Prosecutors say the gang offers protection only to white male inmates who join in on their crimes.

The men are scheduled to be back in court in mid-September.

___________________________________________

Fourteen members of the "Aryan Warriors," a white supremacist gang, have been indicted in Las Vegas in a case that has exposed a major crime ring inside Nevada's prison system. Investigators say this network of inmates use violence, intimidation and racial hatred to achieve their goals.

The group of white supremacists call themselves the "Aryan Warriors" and they now face federal charges of conspiring to commit everything from drug trafficking to murder.

The alleged gang leader is Ronald Sellers; prosecutors say he was involved in a fatal knife attack on another inmate. The indictment also alleges that gang members would extort money from the relatives of other inmates whose safety the gang members had the power to threaten.

All of this was done, according to prosecutors, to finance and spread a message of hatred and racial supremacy. And certain prison employees may have become involved in the corruption.

"There were allegations in the indictment that prison employees brought drugs into the institution," said Howard Skolnik, who runs the Nevada prison system.

Prosecutors also say the prison gang was involved in plenty of crime outside the prison walls such as distributing illegal drugs like methamphetamine, in neighborhoods all around the state.

Even though the indictment mentions corrupt activities by prison workers, no employees of the prison system have been arrested. We're told this investigation has lasted for four years but it is still far from over.

______________________________________

Federal authorities in Las Vegas say they've busted up a racist white supremacist gang based in the Nevada state prison system.

Fourteen men are named in a federal racketeering indictment unsealed today charging them with murder, extortion, drug dealing, fraud, identity theft and other violent crimes.

The U.S. attorney's office and FBI say the men were members of the Aryan Warriors -- based in the prison system, but with tentacles in methamphetamine distribution in cities around the region.

The charges include allegations stemming from the stabbing death of a prison inmate in August 2001; assaults on two other inmates in 2004 and 2005; and the February beating of a person on the outside.

They're also accused of threatening and extorting money from inmate families, and stealing and using identification documents and credit cards.

Four of the accused were arrested this morning in Las Vegas. One was arrested in Pahrump. The others are already in federal or state prisons. They're all due tomorrow morning before a magistrate in U.S. District Court in Las Vegas.

(Copyright 2007 by The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved.)

Source: KVBC