Mexican attacks inflame tensions on Staten Island

Olmedo, who was hospitalized for five days and was briefly in a coma, contends he was targeted because of his ethnicity, not because he had been involved in a related incident or because the suspects wanted to steal his belongings.

Cristian Salazar, Associated Press, in Salon

In this Aug. 4, 2010 photo, Isaias Lozano shows a reporter where he was wounded during a robbery at El Centro del Inmigrante in the Port Richmond section of Staten Island, New York. Although Lozano was a victim of a robbery in the neighborhood, it has not been determined that it was a bias or hate crime.

When Rodolfo Olmedo was dragged down by a group of men shouting anti-Mexican epithets and bashed over the head with a wooden stick on the street outside his home, he instinctively covered his face to keep from getting disfigured. Blood filled his mouth.

"I wanted to scream, but I couldn't because of the beating they were giving me," said the 25-year-old baker. Nearly five months later, he is still taking pain medications for his head injuries.

Recorded by a store's surveillance camera, the assault was the first of 11 suspected anti-Hispanic bias attacks in a Staten Island neighborhood, re-igniting years-old tensions between blacks and Hispanics in New York City's most remote borough.

More...