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Five immigrants killed, six hurt in South Georgia attacks

By Associated press
Published October 1, 2005

TIFTON, Ga. - Five men were killed and at least six people were wounded in what appeared to be a string of robberies targeting Hispanic immigrants at mobile home parks in and around the city of Tifton, Ga., early Friday, authorities said.

The victims were attacked with handguns and an aluminum baseball bat found at one of the crime scenes, said Vernon Keenan, director of the Georgia Bureau of Investigation.

Police were looking for two men in the attacks. "We believe the same two suspects committed all four home invasions," Keenan said.

All the dead were immigrants from Mexico, and all but one belonged to the same family, said Francisco Dominguez, who says his uncle and a cousin were killed in their mobile home on the outskirts of town.

"He came here to work and here is where he died," Dominguez said of his uncle, who emigrated from Mexico a year ago. "He should have gone out to build chicken houses this morning."

The attacks took place in southern Georgia, about 180 miles south of Atlanta. Three of the attacks were in Tift County - two within Tifton's city limits - and one in neighboring Colquitt County.

"We think they're tied together," said Colquitt County Sheriff's Capt. Hal Suber.

Among the injured, two were in critical condition and three others were in serious condition, Keenan said.

In the Colquitt County attack, a man was shot in the head and beaten with a baseball bat, and his wife was struck in the face, Suber said. The man was in stable condition at a hospital in Thomasville. The woman has been released, Colquitt County Sheriff Al Whittington said.

Whittington said the attacks didn't appear to be hate crimes. He said they could be linked to other robberies of immigrants in the past two weeks.

Immigrants "carry large sums of cash and that makes them an easy prey," Whittington said. "I don't think it has anything to do with race or hate."

Hispanics in the area fear otherwise, said the Rev. Alfonso Gutierrez of Our Divine Saviour Church, the only Catholic church in Tifton.

"There is a lot of fear because people wonder up to what point it could be a race question," Gutierrez said. "It's a vulnerable community."

Tift and Colquitt counties are home to at least 14,000 immigrants from Mexico and Central America who work on cotton and peanut farms, said Luz Marti, a volunteer with Gutierrez' church.

[Last modified October 1, 2005, 01:46:16]