A human being was murdered in the most brutal way possible -- kicked and punched mercilessly on his head, and all over his body, while lying impotent on the ground--  in savage attack by a group of “normal”, handsome teenagers, residents of an otherwise quiet town in Eastern Pennsylvania.

Shouting racial epithets, offended by the “foreign” looks of the victim of Mexican origin, Brandon J. Piekarsky and Derrick M. Donchak, 17 and 19 years old, respectively, ended up becoming the killers of Luis Eduardo Ramirez, just 25, and father of 2 children.

Kids killing another kid. Innocence turned into brutality and horror.

A young life violently cut off and 2 others damned by the innocent blood of their victim-- no matter the not surprising verdict that will probably let them go free shortly.

The farcical court procedure that ended up last Friday in Shenandoah, Pennsylvania, and the heinous crime that preceded it, forces us to reflect on the matter.

It is a rude awakening in several regards, as it happens to be a tragedy taking place here in our own backyard.

Can our subtle racial misapprehensions, not so much concealed during our daily social interactions, turn into barbarianism at any given any moment?

Especially among the young, the easiest to impress by a rampant campaign of hate and fear that we, the adults, continue to tolerate in our public discourse?

That hatred and fear against Americans of Latino descent, instigated constantly by reputable media personalities like Lou Dobbs, Bill O’Reilly, Glenn Beck, and Pat Buchanan, emerges in our minds as a likely backdrop of this tragedy in Shenandoah.

Brandon J. Piekarsky and Derrick M. Donchak were inebriated by alcohol, perhaps, but the vitriol coming at us, almost everyday, from the TV screen, could have also dangerously intoxicated their minds.

The demonizing of the Latino immigrant is now so common that we have developed a dangerous tolerance for it.

Political leaders in our State, beginning with Governor Ed Rendell, who has remained silent in the case since Friday, or the mainstream media in Philadelphia, which has treated the case as just another piece of ordinary news, are yet to show outrage at the most pernicious form of present-day racism: The one targeting Latinos.

When we thought that killing this savage way, and absolving in this cynical manner in court, was something that belonged to times past, all of a sudden we are confronted with the realization that a modern way of Lynching still survives, here in the Northeast, in the 21st Century.

A modern age Lynching that makes the most unprotected members of our society its favorite targets.

Who should we blame for the killing of Luis Eduardo Ramírez in Pennsylvania?

Or the not so much different killing of Jose Sucuzhanay, executed with baseball bats in Brooklyn, New York, last year?

Or the almost identical murder of Marcelo Lucero, stabbed to death in Long Island?

Just the material perpetrators?

How about the rest of us: Those who consent to the climate of intolerance, remain indifferent to it, or directly instigate it.