SHENANDOAH, Pennsylvania (CNN) -- By the time help arrived, Luis Ramirez lay convulsing in the middle of the street, foam running from his mouth.

Crystal Dillman displays the religious medal worn by her fiance, Luis Ramirez, who died from a beating. Blows had struck the 25-year-old Mexican immigrant with such force that they left a clotted, bruised impression of Jesus Christ on the skin of his chest from the religious medal he wore.

His attackers were white teenagers, including star students and football players, witnesses told police.

After a night of drinking, the teens taunted the undocumented worker with racial epithets, pummeled him to the ground and then kicked him in the head, court documents charge. He died in a hospital two days later.

It took almost two weeks for arrests to be made. But on July 25, Colin J. Walsh, 17, and Brandon J. Piekarsky, 16, were charged as adults with homicide and ethnic intimidation.

Derrick M. Donchak, 18, was charged as an adult with aggravated assault and ethnic intimidation and an unnamed juvenile was also charged with assault. The U.S. Department of Justice announced Wednesday that its civil rights division has opened a criminal investigation.

Defense attorneys for two of the teens say Ramirez responded to the name-calling with his own insults, which escalated the confrontation into to a fight that got out of hand.

The words allegedly hurled at Ramirez, and the perceived sentiments behind them, led prosecutors to label his death a hate crime.

Without the ethnic intimidation charges, many in Shenandoah believe the case would not be drawing attention to this depressed northeastern Pennsylvania coal town of 5,000. Residents question whether the attack was racially motivated or just an alcohol-fueled confrontation among kids.

Ramirez had spent July 12 with friends Arielle and Victor Garcia in their home. About 11 p.m. he asked them to drive him and a 15-year-old girl home, a probable cause affidavit says.

They got as far as a dusty park on Vine Street when Ramirez asked the couple to drop them off so they could walk. What happened next depends on the narrator, but everyone seems to agree that the first comments were directed toward the girl and Ramirez.

"Isn't it a little late for you guys to be out?" the boys said, according to court documents. "Get your Mexican boyfriend out of here."

Racial slurs followed, and Ramirez responded. Punches were thrown, and Ramirez fell to the ground. Then Ramirez used his cell phone to call Arielle and Victor Garcia for help.

The fight seemed to be over by the time the Garcias responded. But in an instant, the taunts resumed.

It is unclear who threw the first insult. Ramirez was knocked to the ground again and kicked in the head. He went into convulsions, said Arielle Garcia, who witnessed the second part of the fight. Garcia, 17, told police she knew some of the assailants from school.

By this time, Eileen Burke, a retired Philadelphia police officer, had stepped out of her home after hearing Arielle Garcia's pleas to stop the beating.

Burke recalled hearing one final, ominous threat as the teens ran. "They yelled, 'You effin bitch, tell your effin Mexican friends get the eff out of Shenandoah or you're gonna be laying effin next to him,' " she told CNN.

Piekarsky and Donchak are also accused of meeting the next day to plan how to cover up their involvement. Read the court affidavit (pdf)

Ramirez was taken off life support two days after the fight. His body was flown back to his mother in Guanajuato, Mexico, with donations from parishioners from Annunciation Church in Shenandoah.

"There's outrage among Anglos and Latinos over what happened, and I think that's representative of the attitude here," said the Rev. George Winne, who is in charge of Hispanic ministries at Annunciation.

Others in town pull over their cars at the sight of a stranger and recite a litany of attacks allegedly perpetrated by Latinos against Anglos. They refuse to give their names but acknowledge that Ramirez did not deserve to die. They say violence has been brewing between the races for some time.

Attorneys for two of the teens deny Ramirez was targeted because of his race.

"Let's call it what it was it was -- a street fight, a chance encounter with a tragic outcome," said Frederick Fanelli, who represents Piekarsky.

Fanelli told CNN he plans to investigate whether Ramirez has a criminal background. He also questions why the engaged father of three was walking on the street with the girl, and the nature of their relationship. Ramirez' fiancee says he was walking her younger sister home.

A lawyer for Walsh said he is equally skeptical about the ethnic intimidation charge. "They called each other names. The victim was calling them obscenities, vulgar names, and they said things back to him that would hurt him," Roger Laguna said. "It just means it was a foul-mouthed argument, not ethnic intimidation."

Ramirez died just as things were falling into place for him and Crystal Dillman, 24, the woman he planned to marry.

They met in Shenandoah in 2005 through the Garcias, had two children, Kiara and Eduardo, and Ramirez assumed the role of father to Dillman's daughter from a previous relationship, Angelina.

By May, Ramirez had settled permanently in Shenandoah, working two jobs after spending six months picking berries in Georgia.

"He worked hard so his kids would have more than he had growing up," Dillman said. "He talked a lot about how we take so much for granted here."

His diamond-encrusted religious medal, which cost him $300, now hangs over the fireplace in the three-story home on Main Street where Dillman and the children live.

"I just don't understand how you can beat someone so badly when you don't even know them," Dillman said. "People here are just ignorant. They think life begins and ends in Shenandoah."

A court affidavit identifies Walsh and Piekarsky as the teens who delivered the fatal blows: Walsh punched Ramirez in the face and knocked him to the ground. Piekarsky then allegedly kicked Ramirez in the head.

Michael Walsh is struggling to comprehend how his boy -- a straight-A student who juggled track, football and school -- could stand accused of killing another person when he should be starting his senior year in high school.

"It's very stressing because you just don't expect it. If you had a child that's constantly in trouble, you'd say, hey, well, this is coming any day," he told CNN.

"Colin was a great kid and fell into a bad situation. He never really gave me any trouble," he added. "I feel sorry for the families and anyone who cares about Mr. Ramirez." Watch Walsh describe his family's 'nightmare' »

"You would be proud to have any of these kids in your classroom, and any of them as your children," said Fanelli, Piekarsky's lawyer. "To this point in their lives, they have done everything right."

Besides his academic achievement, Piekarsky worked part-time at Sears and made the varsity football team as a sophomore. He is a National Honors student.

His mother postponed her wedding to a Shenandoah police officer because of the incident.

Walsh and Piekarsky are being held in solitary confinement in an adult jail in nearby Pottsville. They are awaiting a preliminary hearing.

Donchak was the team's quarterback last year and graduated in May. He planned to attend Bloomsburg University in the fall. He is out on bail.

More...

Town struggles with fallout from immigrant's fatal beating - CNN.com

How sad for all involved. One more example of the urgent need for imigration reform, .

This has nothing to do with immigration. It's about a bunch of stupid drunk kids who lacked parenting, lacked morals lacked the idea that there is right and wrong. It's about stupidity and crappy parenting. It's about bored, drunk kids. But it has absolutely nothing to do with immigration. Had the dumb-ass kids not found a immigrant, they probably would have found a homeless person or someone else they could find an excuse to victimize.

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Our nation has not always lived up to its ideals, yet those ideals have never ceased to guide us. They expose our flaws, and lead us to mend them. We are the beneficiaries of the work of the generations before us and it is each generation's responsibility to continue that work. - Laura Bush

God is a conservative -

Ecclesiastes 10:2--"A wise man's heart inclines him to the right, but a fool's heart to the left."

Ok,

Sad. And I agree the two should be tried as adults. I don't always say that but in this case I believe it is warranted. But I don't see it as an immigration problem. It's a case of a couple being in the wrong place at the wrong time. And very unfortunate for all parties.

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Obviously I disagree... to a point. I agree on faithful that they were drunk, stupid kids, lacking appropriate parenting, etc. etc. What I don't agree on is that it was not race related. The negative nationwide rhetoric these kids hear brought about the viciousness of the attacks. Had it been a white couple walking down that street, it would not have gone any further than jeers, IMO. If it had been a black man and they had screamed f***ing ni***r before beating him to death, you'd have Al Sharpton organizing a march quicker than you could say "lynching",

...and had they been black kids beating up the immigrant, we'd be hearing NOTHING about it. Stupidity and immoral behavior knows no race, gender, or nationality, but the press will make it sound like it does. Had these kids been black, there would have been no mention of it in the article (and possibly no article at all), but since they are white, it was mentioned within the first couple sentences and we have "crisis" on our hands. This is not about racism, it's about stupidity, ignorance and kids with no moral foundation.

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Our nation has not always lived up to its ideals, yet those ideals have never ceased to guide us. They expose our flaws, and lead us to mend them. We are the beneficiaries of the work of the generations before us and it is each generation's responsibility to continue that work. - Laura Bush

God is a conservative -

Ecclesiastes 10:2--"A wise man's heart inclines him to the right, but a fool's heart to the left."

I should like to draw your attention to another part of the article:

"Others in town pull over their cars at the sight of a stranger and recite a litany of attacks allegedly perpetrated by Latinos against Anglos. They refuse to give their names but acknowledge that Ramirez did not deserve to die. They say violence has been brewing between the races for some time."

This is not the first (nor the last) incident that involves racial attacks against Hispanics perceived to be illegal (in this case he was, but could just as easily have not been). Young people are usually hormonal and spiteful, we certainly don't need to add yet another ingredient to the mix. These kids have ruined their lives over what they "percieved" as a threat to our way of life.

Whether the article got press coverage or not is irrelevant. Or just because the media doesn't pick it up, does that make it unimportant? I'm judging this by what it is, not what the press says it is,

So.......

It's not about "racism" because IF black kids had been the perpetrators instead of white kids, then it wouldn't have gotten any press...
(And hopefully I'm pointing out the obvious by saying that IF black kids had been the perpetrators, it would STILL be racism. Racism that falls in the woods and doesn't have the press report on it is STILL racism...)
A HYPOTHETICAL somehow prevents a specific situation in reality...

And furthermore, racism is ABOUT "stupidity and immoral behavior".
It's like saying "this can't be a penguin cause it's a bird"...

You haven't presented ANY facts in this case, shown NO ANALYSIS of any facts in this case, and yet you presume to definitively declare that it can't be racism...

I'd also like to point out another very glaring double standard. These two white teenagers killed this Hispanic (illegal) immigrant and we are supposed to view it as a person specific issue, wherein it involves only these two individuals and not a societal problem.

When it is the case of an illegal Hispanic immigrant who commits a crime against an American (not race specific), then we focus on all illegal imigrants as the root of all evil in the country, and not just as that illegal individual's actions.

This is the flipside of that coin - the consequences of the illegal imigration issue on the American psyche, when the illegal is not the bad guy, but the victim. . So... because my husband is Hispanic and speaks with an accent, I should worry about him getting beat up by some thug who thinks he's illegal? or worse, just because he's Hispanic?

"Burke recalled hearing one final, ominous threat as the teens ran. "They yelled, 'You effin bitch, tell your effin Mexican friends get the eff out of Shenandoah or you're gonna be laying effin next to him,' " she told CNN."

Sounds like a race-related death threat to me, specially because it followed an actual murder,

16 years old, Geez, what a way to throw away a life over bigotry. I bet their parents are wishing now they had taught them the meaning of the word tolerance,

They may have called him a f__king Mezcan, and he might have said dumb bollio,
but that is not the makings of a hate crime. The Spanish guy and his date were at a disadvantage and these punks were looking for trouble all liquored (or drugged) up. No different than a friend of mine down in Houston years ago walks into a little place thinking to by a pack of cigarettes and getting his head kicked by some Mexicans. We didn't even know he had left the hotel until
the attendant came knocking at my door said did I know this guy. We reported it to the police, and they said he should watch what part of town he went in and definitely don't go to an unfamiliar place late at night like that. We learned a lesson, and thank goodness his wound although worrisome turned out to be benign. Somebody doesn't always come to your rescue when you don't look out for yourself. I bet that girl's parents had warned her a million times be careful about being in the street. In other words stick to where you know you are safe.
The boys who did this should be brought up on charges of manslaughter, cause that's the usual thing for a street fight. The prosecutor may go for murder, but I think without the hate crime thing he is going to have a hard time getting murder-one to stick (no pre meditation-liquor was involved-words were exchanged). That is probably why he/she is going for the hate crime to try to get the ultimate sentence in that state. I just don't think it was a "hate" crime as understood to mean specifically against a person because they were "A", "B", or "C".

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