Colin Walsh, Fatal Beating, Pennsylvania 2009

A Shenandoah, Pennsylvania man has been sentenced to prison for his role in the fatal beating of a Latino man. Colin Walsh, 19, was sentenced to 55 months in prison, three years of supervised release, and ordered to pay $550 to the Pennsylvania victim compensation fund, as well as a special assessment.

The crime occurred on July 12, 2008, when Walsh and two others, Brandon Piekarsky and Derrick Donchak, attacked Luis Ramirez in a park after leaving a community festival. During the course of the beating, the assailants yelled racial epithets and told Ramirez to 'go back to Mexico.'

According to evidence presented at the federal trials, Donchak beat Ramirez while holding a thick piece of metal, and Walsh punched Ramirez in the face. Piekarsky kicked Ramirez in the head as he lay prone on the ground. After the fight concluded, Ramirez was airlifted to Geisinger Regional Medical Center, where he died of massive head injuries.

Walsh pleaded guilty to one felony violation of the Federal Fair Housing Act for his role in aiding and abetting Piekarsky and Donchak in the beating of Ramirez. He testified against Piekarsky, Donchak, and members of the Shenandoah Police Department in two federal trials.

On October 14, 2010, a federal jury in the Middle District of Pennsylvania found Piekarsky and Donchak guilty of violating the Federal Fair Housing Act for fatally beating Ramirez because he was Latino and because they did not want him living in Shenandoah.

The case was investigated by special agents from the FBI's Philadelphia Division and was prosecuted by Myesha Braden and Gerard V. Hogan of the Civil Rights Division's Criminal Section with the assistance of the U.S. Attorney's Office for the Middle District of Pennsylvania.

“Acts of racially-motivated violence like this one have no place in America. Their occurrence is a reminder that bigotry persists in 2011,” said Thomas E. Perez, Assistant Attorney General for the Civil Rights Division of the Department of Justice. “The Civil Rights Division will vigorously enforce the rights of every American.”

Source: https://www.justice.gov/archives/opa/pr/shenandoah-pennsylvania-man-sentenced-involvement-fatal-beating-luis-ramirez