U.S. probes slaying of immigrant in Pa.

The Justice Department has opened an investigation into this month's fatal beating of a Mexican immigrant in the small Pennsylvania coal town of Shenandoah, the agency said yesterday.

Citing ethnic intimidation, officials in Schuylkill County have charged three white teens in the attack on Luis Ramirez, a 25-year-old father of two.

The case has been assigned to FBI agents in Allentown and the criminal section of the Justice Department's Civil Rights Division. Department spokeswoman Jamie Hais would not say what had prompted their involvement.

A Mexican American advocacy group applauded the federal attention to the slaying.

"The significance really rises to the national stage," said lawyer John Amaya of the Mexican American Legal Defense and Educational Fund, which held a vigil Tuesday in the victim's memory.

Ramirez was beaten and kicked July 12 when he crossed paths with a group of teens who had been out drinking before attending a Polish American block party in the town, about 80 miles northwest of Philadelphia. He died two days later.

On Friday, county officials charged Brandon J. Piekarsky, 16, and Colin J. Walsh, 17, as adults with homicide and ethnic intimidation. Derrick M. Donchak, 18, was charged with aggravated assault and ethnic intimidation. All three played on the Shenandoah Valley High School football team last year.

Officials have said they may charge a fourth teenager.

The killing exposed long-simmering tensions in Shenandoah, a blue-collar town of 5,000 with a growing number of Hispanic residents drawn by factory and farm jobs.