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Jury Member, Witness, Legal Experts Condemn Pennsylvania Hate Crime Verdict
Embedded video from CNN Video Last week, in the small town of Shenandoah, Pennsylvania, an all-white jury acquitted defendants Derrick Donchak, 19, and Brandon Piekarsky, 17, of aggravated assault, reckless endangerment, and ethnic intimidation in the death of Mexican immigrant Luis Ramirez last July. "Ethnic intimidation" is Pennsylvania's legal term for "hate crime." Both teens, however, were convicted of simple assault. The verdict has left many feeling that the two teens got away with murder. Last summer, Ramirez, the 25 year-old father of two, was walking down the street with his girlfriend when he encountered the group of teens who had been drinking earlier in the night. Prosecutors said the teens "baited Ramirez into a fight with racial epithets and provoked an exchange of punches and kicks that ended with Ramirez convulsing in the street, foaming at the mouth." According to one affidavit, one teen in the group yelled to Ramirez's girlfriend, "Get your Mexican boyfriend out of here!" Another witness, a retired police officer, overheard the teens screaming at Ramirez's girlfriend as they ran, "Tell your effin Mexican friends [to] get the eff out of Shenandoah or you're gonna be laying effin next to him." Ramirez died two days later in the hospital. Read More
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