Despite their brutality, the robberies are not necessarily motivated by ethnic bigotry, authorities say. Rather, they are typically crimes of opportunity. While the majority of the perpetrators have been identified as black men, Latinos and whites have also been charged in some cases, authorities said.
"All you need is a shadow and a victim," said Warren Jensen, a Montgomery police officer who is a member of the unit assigned to combat such robberies.
Robbers Stalk Hispanic Immigrants, Seeing Ideal Prey
By Ernesto Londoño and Theresa Vargas
Washington Post Staff Writers
Friday, October 26, 2007; A01
By the time they set upon Victor Hernandez, knocking him to the pavement and kicking him furiously, the teenagers were deep into a weeks-long spree of robbing Hispanic immigrants.
They coined a term for the assaults, one that reflected the uniformity of the victims they selected: "amigo shopping." The teenagers recorded some of the attacks with a cellphone camera, saving one of the videos under the file name "amigo," a source familiar with the case said.
Hernandez, a dishwasher in Montgomery County, was an ideal target that August night in a type of robbery that law enforcement officials say has become alarmingly common in parts of the Washington region. Hispanic immigrants are being targeted, often in gratuitously violent attacks by non-Hispanics, because they are thought to carry cash rather than use banks and to be reluctant to report crimes to police, the officials said.
The attacks are occurring with such frequency that police in Prince William County have created a task force, and Montgomery police have assigned a specialized unit to tackle the problem. The crimes are having profound effects in the neighborhoods where they occur, causing some residents to alter their routines.
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