Sheriff, FBI Send Teams to Alpine Camp : Violence: Investigations launched into the beating of migrant workers at encampment.

The Sheriff’s Department dispatched a special team of detectives to Alpine Monday to investigate the beating of three Latino migrants with bats last week, as the FBI began a civil rights investigation.

Sheriff’s officials said they hoped to send a strong message that vigilante actions will not be tolerated.

Two Mexican nationals and one Guatemalan were seriously injured Thursday night when at least six Anglo men stampeded through a migrant encampment in a random attack meant as retaliation for the alleged rape of a woman in the area a week earlier, authorities said.

The FBI initiated a preliminary civil rights investigation into the beatings Monday, and migrant activists announced they will offer a reward of at least $3,000 for any information leading to the arrest of the attackers.

In addition, two investigative teams were sent to Alpine Monday to assist the sheriff’s substation, which authorities said is understaffed and cannot handle the rape and bat attack investigations simultaneously. Patrols in the area were also increased.

“We discussed this at great length and decided the thing to do is to put augmented resources into both investigations,” said sheriff’s spokesman Dan Greenblat.

The decision was made in an early morning meeting of Sheriff Jim Roache and other top sheriff’s officials, Greenblat said.

The FBI investigation was launched after migrant activists contacted the agency in San Diego, FBI spokesman Ron Orrantia said.

Migrants at the camp said they had been threatened by bat-wielding men since Sept. 25, the day after a woman was allegedly raped nearby. No one is in custody in connection with the rape, and it has not been linked to the encampment, officials say.

On Thursday, tensions boiled over when six to eight men wielding bats stampeded through the camp, beating two men who were sleeping near the creek bed and then attacking a carload of migrants on Tavern Road, which borders the encampment.

Migrant activists gathered at the encampment at dawn Monday to talk with the men and learn what can be done to prevent further attacks. Thursday evening’s beating has sent tremors through the migrant community that frequents the camp--many of them legal residents from Mexicali who return to their families on weekends.

“There were definitely fewer of them out there,” said Claudia Smith, regional counsel for California Rural Legal Assistance. The camp population has fluctuated between 20 and 60, but Monday only about a dozen men were waiting at the curbside for work, she said.

The men had laid their bedding on the sidewalk--still covered with blood and glass from Thursday’s attack--rather than risk sleeping in the creek bed, said Roberto Martinez, a migrant activist with the American Friends Service Committee, the group that is offering the reward.

“We consider this a serious crisis,” Martinez said. “It has been building up. This (rape) was just the thing that turned them loose on the migrants.”

Greenblat said the Sheriff’s Department will encourage Alpine residents to reopen a community dialogue about the migrant issue. More than a year of meetings held to explore alternative housing for the migrants ended in deadlock last year.

Oscar Mendoza, 32, a Guatemalan national who has lived in the United States for 14 years, was sleeping at the creek bed with his friend, Leobardo Zarco, also 32, when they were attacked Thursday.

Mendoza and Zarco arrived in Alpine Wednesday in search of work, and had made arrangements with a contractor to begin construction work Saturday morning, Mendoza said.

He was released from Valley Medical Center Monday with a head injury and broken arm that required surgery. Zarco, who was airlifted Thursday from Alpine to Sharp Memorial Hospital, is in fair condition, a hospital spokeswoman said.

The third victim--39-year-old Jose Luis Lopez of Mexicali--was beaten on the face and head when he got out of a car that was being smashed by the bat-wielding men. Lopez was treated and released from Grossmont Hospital and told to see a plastic surgeon immediately, his boss at a Santee motorcycle shop said.

He returned to Mexicali to seek treatment.

Migrant activists, and the Mexican and Guatemalan consulates, have contacted the men and are working to secure some financial assistance for them.