Teen apologizes in Luis Ramirez murder

A Pennsylvanian teen publicly apologized in juvenile court for participating in the beating death of a Mexican immigrant.

According to the AP wire, eighteen-year-old Brian Scully admitted that he was part of a group of teens who assaulted and murdered 25-year-old Luis Ramirez last July. A local judge subsequently reprimanded Scully (to use the term loosely) by ordering him to spend at least 90 days in a treatment center.

Scully and three other teens were charged in connection with Ramirez’ death in the rural mining town of Shenandoah. Two of his cohorts- Brandon Piekarsky and Derrick Donchak- were cleared of serious charges including murder and “ethnic intimidation”. (Both of them were still convicted of simple assault and could face federal charges.)

During the trial, both sides agreed that the assault took place with prosecutors arguing that the teens targeted Ramirez and baited him with racial slurs. Yet the jury sided with the defense who emphasized conflicting witness testimony and painted Ramirez as the real aggressor (despite him ending up dead, that is).

The trial highlighted the racial tensions in Shenandoah, a town that has recently seen a boost in its Latino population:

“It’s only gotten worse since the verdict,” said a white woman at a downtown store who asked that her name not be used because she was afraid of how her neighbors might react to her having talked to a reporter. “The whole thing has set us backwards, and if the trial had swung the other way, it would have just been the whites who were angry”…

Downtown, at the local Hispanic bodega and the town’s main Mexican restaurant, patrons did not want their names used but seemed eager to tell their stories.

One Mexican woman described how people yelled at them if they spoke Spanish in public. Another said that since the trial, more people in passing cars seemed to yell things at her as she walked home from work.

All of them added that most people in town did not act that way, but that there were enough exceptions to make them fearful.

Image- CNN (“Luis Ramirez died of blunt force injuries after a confrontation with a group of Pennsylvania teens.”)
Online Sources- New York Times, CNN, Guardian UK, Los Angeles Times, philly.com, standadspeaker.com