Latinos in Suffolk County face racial intolerance, report says - CNN.com: NEW YORK (CNN) -- Latino immigrants living in Suffolk County, New York, have been living in an environment of intolerance and attacks against them, a report released Wednesday by the Southern Poverty Law Center said.
The atmosphere of intolerance is stoked in part by anti-immigrant groups, an indifferent police department, and county leaders themselves, according to the report.
The law center, which researches and keeps tabs on hate groups, became interested in the Long Island county after the November 8, 2008, murder of Marcelo Lucero, an Ecuadorian immigrant in Patchogue, New York. Prosecutors allege that the killers were a group of teenagers who targeted Latinos as part of a sport they called 'beaner-hopping.'
