Black-on-Hispanic crime in Laurel, Mississippi

Brian Livingston:

Last week, Laurel Police Department patrolmen came upon a lone Hispanic man who said he’d been confronted by several black men, beaten and robbed of his money. The victim recovered from his injuries, but the case was just the latest example of crimes targeting Hispanics in Laurel.

According to authorities at the LPD, there have been approximately 50 cases since June involving Hispanics victimized by black assailants. And those are just the ones the LPD knows about.

“These people come from a country where there is corruption everywhere, especially when it comes to police and the court system,” said LPD Detective Michael Reaves. “So when they come to our country, after dodging border patrol officers and agents of the Immigration and Customs Enforcement Agency (ICE), they are leery of anyone who carries a gun and a badge. I don’t even want to think about how many more robberies and assaults have occurred but have not been reported for fear of being deported.”

One disturbing aspect of these crimes is that the vast majority of the suspects, especially in the 50 cases cited earlier, have all been black men between the ages of 16 and 22,with the youngest being 13.

“These black men run in packs of half a dozen people and prey on a lone person or maybe two people caught out on the street,” said Reaves. “Some of the victims are elderly, while others are very young. And the frequency in which these encounters end in a violent act is going up.”

Woman robbed at gunpoint