Jan 13, 2009 6:24 am US/Eastern
Justice Dept. To Probe Suffolk Co. Hate Crimes
Reporting
Lou Young
NEW YORK (CBS) ―
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Marcelo Lucero, 37, was stabbed to death in what police believe to be a "brutal murder motivated by racial bias."
CBS
Federal investigators are now getting involved in a Long Island hate crime investigation.
The murder of Ecuadoran immigrant Marcelo Lucero and several other attacks on Hispanic immigrants are now federal cases. The Justice Department announced a short time ago that it has opened an investigation into whether civil rights were violated.
The Lucero case has been a rally point for activists who claim there has been a widespread pattern of anti-Hispanic violence in Suffolk County, fueled by anti-immigrant rhetoric on the part of public officials and others.
Lucero and his brother were set upon by a gang of teenagers in November near the Patchogue train station shouting racial insults.
Both were beaten and Lucero was killed.
The Justice Department said its decision comes on the heels of an 11-page complaint by the group Latino Justice.
"I think that this is saying is that situations in which the police are more interested and looking for undocumented people and less interested in protecting the civil rights of Latino. These situations have to stop. And that local police have to understand that their first obligation is to protect the safety of these communities," Caesar Parales, president of Latino Justice, told CBS 2 HD by phone.
A spokesman for the feds said, " For now, we are investigating the incidents themselves and not any one department, but these investigations often take us in interesting directions."
(© MMIX, CBS Broadcasting Inc. All Rights Reserved.)
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