Migrant Seeks an End to Beatings, Abuse

Candido Salas says he isn’t the first migrant worker to be kidnaped, beaten and humiliated outside two brothers’ rural Carlsbad grocery store. But if he gets his way, he will be the last.

A week ago, as he waited for a day job outside the Country Store on El Camino Real, the 26-year-old migrant worker was allegedly handcuffed and punched several times by store owner Rickey Joe Ryberg and his brother Randy--in what police have said may have been an attempt to scare migrants from the market.

After handcuffing Salas to a railing behind the store for two hours, police said, the Rybergs bound the migrant worker’s hands and feet with duct tape. They then put a brown paper bag over his head. On the bag, they scrawled “No Mas Aqui,” or ungrammatical Spanish for “Don’t Come Back,” authorities said.

He may not speak English or even live in the United States legally, but Salas believes he and other migrant laborers deserve better treatment. So he is pressing the prosecution of the brothers, who last week were charged with kidnaping, false imprisonment, battery and civil-rights violations.

“We’ve asked them for justice,” he said of police and prosecutors. “We’ve told them that we’re illegals but that we don’t deserve to be treated like this. We’re people. We’re not animals.”

But these days, the parking lot of the market they call “La Gallina” for the large fiberglass rooster perched on its roof, has become a dangerous place to seek work, Salas and other migrants say.

In recent months, the Ryberg brothers have repeatedly harassed migrant workers who congregate outside their store, laborers contend.

The Rybergs are suspected of randomly abducting at least three other laborers besides Salas and giving them the same harsh treatment--a paper bag placed over their heads after they were beaten, handcuffed and held for hours against their will, the victims said.

Migrant workers say as many as four others have been kidnaped by the brothers--who police say are both over 6 foot 4 and weigh more than 220 pounds each--but were spared the indignation of wearing the paper bag. One worker returned to Mexico after his arm was reportedly broken.

The Rybergs have also chastised potential employers who drove up to their leased grocery-store lot, workers say.

On Tuesday, neither brother would comment on the alleged attacks.

But Carlsbad police say they are investigating several new complaints of assaults against migrants outside the store--reported by laborers who were apparently too timid to come forward before.

“That’s what I’m hearing,” Detective Richard Castaneda said of the alleged kidnapings and attacks. “We’ve talked with several migrants who told us what supposedly went on. The whole works is still under investigation. But it will all come out in the end.”

Meanwhile, several laborers have forsaken the once-popular street corner near the Rybergs’ store to look for work elsewhere.

Salas, on the advice of Carlsbad police, now avoids the store. Instead, he walks to a convenience store near Interstate 5. On Tuesday morning, before he reported to a nearby job site to pick tomatoes for $5 an hour, he spoke of his determination to take the brothers to court.

“I want to prosecute because if we let this case go, they might one day kill one of my companions,” said Salas, a slight man who barely weighs 100 pounds. “If we stop here, the police won’t pay any more attention to us. They’ll say we’re not serious enough to pursue these cases.”

Castaneda said he is impressed by the resolve demonstrated by the migrant worker:

“I sense that, after his lead, these people are getting to the point where they’re going to start coming out of the woodwork to tell us what has been happening up there.”

Carlsbad police also are looking into a report by migrant workers that a U.S. Border Patrol agent, who arrived at the market before Carlsbad police, saw that Salas had been tied up but left the scene without taking any action after talking with one of the Ryberg brothers.

Ted Swofford, a spokesman for the U.S. Border Patrol, said his agency had not yet been contacted by Carlsbad police and would not say whether an in-house investigation of the incident would be initiated.

“If it were,” he said, “I wouldn’t be able to talk about it, anyway.”

Salas, who left his wife and two preschool children in Mexico four months ago to find work in the United States, said he has already paid a price for the kidnaping. Now, he must seek work at a location known to fewer bosses, while watching many of his friends return to the Country Store.

“That’s where you go to find work,” he said. “That’s where all the big bosses come.”

But Candido Salas will have his day in court.

“I can’t explain why it happened,” he said of the alleged kidnaping and repeated violence. “We’re not shoplifters. We go into the store, the Mexicans and Guatemalans, and we buy more things than the Americans.

“But they still treat us rough. They push us around. They wouldn’t even give us a place to stand in from the rain.

“That’s the way they treated us. It’s an injustice.”