San Diego Sheriff, FBI Probe Migrant Beatings

The San Diego County Sheriff’s Department on Monday dispatched a team of detectives to investigate the beating of three Central American migrants with bats last week, and the FBI launched 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 an attack apparently meant as retaliation for the alleged rape of a white woman in the area a week earlier, authorities said.

Two investigative teams were sent to Alpine on Monday to assist the sheriff’s substation, which authorities said is understaffed and cannot handle the rape and beating investigations simultaneously. Patrols in the area were also increased.

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

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

Migrants at the camp say they have been threatened by bat-wielding men since Sept. 25, the day after an Anglo 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 nearby.

Migrant activists gathered at the encampment at dawn Monday to talk with the men and try to determine what can be done to prevent more attacks. Last week’s beating sent tremors through the migrant community that frequents the camp--most of it men 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.