6 Boston boys beat sleeping immigrant

[junior college]

Six boys were charged with severely beating a Guatemalan immigrant with bricks, bottles and rocks as he slept near railroad tracks, an attack that civil rights groups decried Tuesday as "hateful."

Derrek Shulman, New England regional director of the Anti-Defamation League, said the July beating of Damian Merida was an example of how immigrants are singled out for attacks.

Police say six boys, ages 11 to 14, beat the 30-year-old Merida in July in Lynn, a city 10 miles (16 kilometers) northeast of Boston. Merida was hospitalized at Massachusetts General Hospital for a month with serious head injuries. Merida's brother said the attack caused brain damage.

In a statement, police said the Lynn boys targeted Merida because of his ethnicity. Police also said they were looking into the assault of another Guatemalan immigrant and "the possibility that the attack was not the first perpetrated by these youths."

http://www.etaiwannews.com/etn/news_content.php?id=1052401&lang=eng_news