Steve Lieberman gathered some community reaction to yesterday’s hate-crime charge in Rockland. The suspect in this BB gun attack, Michael Conklin, was out on bail, facing charges in another hate-crime assault in April. Police said he wore a shirt with KKK and Nazi symbols in the BB attack Monday night.

In today’s Journal News story, one immigrant advocate draws a connection between these incidents and the efforts by Suffern village police to work more closely with ICE. The teen-agers accused in the earlier assault were mostly from Suffern, and both hate-crime incidents occurred in the surrounding town of Ramapo. (For the record, Ramapo’s police chief spoke out against the ICE program known as 287(g), saying such efforts hamper crime-solving and community policing.)

Lieberman reports today:

In April, Conklin and four other young men were arrested on a felony assault charge as a hate crime.

The arrests came several days after they were accused of shouting “white power” while beating up a Hispanic male hanging out with them and other people in woods near the municipal water tower in Sloatsburg in late March.

Conklin, Benjamin Knowles and Michael Lorelli, both 17 and of Suffern, Michael Polloni, 17, of Sloatsburg and Andrew Statham, 18, of Suffern were charged by Ramapo police with one count each of second-degree assault as a hate crime.

…. Juan Pablo Ramirez of the Jornaleros Project said he didn’t believe it was a coincidence that the attacks and the people involved were in the western Ramapo area.

He noted the Suffern police and the government have gotten involved in immigration enforcement with the federal government.

He said singling out Hispanics for immigration checks – whether they are illegally or legally in the country – sends a negative stereotype that young people pick up on.

“Young people look to people in authority and this divisive talk and policies bring a backlash against immigrants,” Ramirez said.

Suffern officials have said they joined the program in order to focus on illegal immigrants who are serious criminal offenders. They say the program would be a tool to help keep the village’s crime level low.

Ramirez said the hate symbols raised more concern.

“When people start wearing a KKK shirt and swastika, this shows something deeper,” he said. “I hope it’s just him and not a group of people.”

He said these incidents should bring people together to discuss issues of accepting people regardless of race, creed or religion.

Racial incidents such as these cannot be tolerated, said Renold Julien, the leader of the Haitian advocacy group Konbit Neg Lakay and the Rockland Immigration Coalition.

“We are against this behavior and such violence,” Julien said. “I don’t know kids who wear KKK on shirts. This one youngster needs help. I don’t know if sending him to jail would be fair. I am hoping local agencies that work with young people will get involved.”