On May 5, 1991, rioting broke out in Mount Pleasant following the shooting of a Salvadoran man by a rookie Metropolitan Police Department officer. At the time, there were disputes about whether the man, reportedly intoxicated, had threatened the officer with a knife. What resulted was a multi-day standoff with police, looted stores, and torched [...]

The Southern Poverty Law Center released a chilling report yesterday, called "Climate of Fear," which details growing violent hatred of Latino immigrants. It focuses on a single county in New York state, but notes that the incidents there – one horrible incident after another – are illustrative of a much larger nationwide problem.

Mount Pleasant, 1991