Late last April, a Schuykill County court’s absolution of two students in the beating death of a mexican was met with official silence, despite being a clear case of racial hatred.

AL DÍA questioned this, especially because local and regional authorities have acted in much the same manner throughout the year, even though the case has drawn national attention.

Last July Luís Ramírez lost his life in Shenandoah because he was mexican, and since then the pressures and partialities of that region have made themselves evident.

This weekly has called for PA state legislative, judicial and executive leaders to comment in accordance with the seriousness of the incident, hoping that isolated and alienated towns like Shenandoah, as well as juries, prosecutors and other authorities, might understand the importance of a trial, of a verdict.

The silence was absolute, and in some cases it rose even to total ignorance of such an abnormal case.

One month after the verdict, Ed Rendell finally commented, and he did so harshly, as the case merits.

“The evidence suggests that Ramírez was beaten and killed because he was mexican,” said the governor in a letter to US Attorney General Eric Holder, in which he called for civil rights charges to be brought against the two students who were absolved.

Previously, in a letter sent to James Goodman, the District Attorney in charge of the case, Rendell wrote that both defendants “deserved the maximum possible sentence for their roles in the savage assault and death of Ramírez.”

It’s a relief that he joined the voices against this injustice that has damaged the entire United States community.