Thread: An Open Letter to Shenandoah Mayor Thomas O'Neill

An Open Letter to Shenandoah Mayor Thomas O’Neill

Posted by Wendi Medashefski on August 21, 2008

by Wendi Medashefski

Dear Mayor O’Neill,

Thank you for taking the time to read this. After following the story of the death of Luis Ramirez, and watching the media twist it into a propagandist, racial crime, I feel it’s necessary at this point to encourage you to find solutions to the problems Shenandoah is facing.

First and foremost, the Pottsville Republican and Herald has refused to print the true facts of the case, picking and choosing what is relevant and what is not. Sadly, their poor choices have painted your entire town, and even county, to look like a racist, hateful community where no Hispanic is safe. You and I both know that assumption is ridiculous, yet that’s exactly what the media wanted to happen, to further their goals of open borders.

So far, you have been fairly silent about this incident. Sometimes silence is golden, and until now, this was likely a wise choice. But now we have the families of the boys, American citizens, being tormented and harassed by the friends of Luis Ramirez. The Piekarsky family was stalked by a van of Hispanics, who then fled the scene. The driver was cited for underage drinking and having no license after being chased by the police. Upon returning to the Piekarsky home, Giovanni Garcia Cruz was found prowling in the doorway of their house. He was also cited for prowling and underage drinking. He is the brother of Victor Garcia Cruz, who was one of those involved in the fight with Ramirez and the boys. Derrick Donchak, in his car, was the victim of a hit-and-run recently, as well.

It is more and more evident that illegal aliens are not simply coming here to make a better life. They are coming here to get things they are not entitled to, such as welfare, social security, and jobs they cannot legally work, not to mention the 13 sex offenders that cross the southern border every day. More than 71,000 American citizens have lost their lives to illegal aliens since 9/11. That figure does not include the rapes, maiming, kidnappings, or assaults on children.

Since things are now swinging even more out of control, it is time for you to take the reigns and lead your community in a way that includes all citizens, the voters who put you in office who are now looking to you to be a leader.

Mayor Louis Barletta of Hazleton, while despised by the ethnocentric groups, is hailed as a hero national for taking a stance on illegal immigration. Some do not even agree with his premise, but are so disgusted by the lack of leadership from our elected government, that they respect Mr. Barletta for taking a stand at all.

Sheriff Joe Arpaio of Arizona is well-known for his tent cities wherein the inmates wear pink underwear. He is also known for his ability to do what many say is impossible: rounding up illegal aliens. Sheriff Arpaio is abhorred by the open borders lobby, but is one of the few heroes in America right now who stand up and do the right thing in the face of adversity.

You now have the opportunity to become one of the rare elected officials the American people can look up to. You can choose to stand by the rule of law, your constituents, and your community by putting your foot down, and saying, “No more! Illegal aliens need to get out of Shenandoah now!â€

Very well done!!!! Good for you.

Originally Posted by Shad

Very well done!!!! Good for you.

Thanks! The protest ought to be fun

....an incredible well written letter!!!!!!

I'd be interested in seeing his response.

First, as a Shenandoah resident, I am not sure to which "facts" Ms. Medeshefski is refering, but I wish she would have cited at least some of them. I have heard all sorts of contradictory hearsay. My experience has been that there is a lot of misinformation on both "sides."

While I agree with the stance that Wendi takes on immigration and some of her suggestions to the mayor, I question whether the media's portrayal - though skewed in someways and most definitely self-serving in others - is all that far off. The have cranked this story for all it is worth in order to serve their agenda.

That said, I personally am sick and tired of hearing things from our citizens like, "Oh, isn't it a shame that these poor nice boy's lives might be ruined. I hope the courts aren't too hard on them. ..." Now wait a minute. These young men have been indicted with regard to an incident that involved the BEATING DEATH of another human being (let's call it what it is).

Whatever fallout is happening between the hispanic community and the families of the accused is probably at least in measure driven by this community attitude of, "Oh let the poor boys go! He was an illegal and shouldn't have been here anyway! He was messing around with an underage girl! etc.," as though any of that makes murder all right somehow. There are legal recourses for any of those situations. None of them involve beating someone to death.

Don't Shenandoah residents think that this attitude is going to be understood within the Hispanic sector of the community. Doesn't it make sense to anyone that this devaluing of the life of the victim by seeking to have these young men get a slap on the wrists - at the most - make us look like unjust self-serving people to immigrants - illegal or otherwise? If the shoe were on the other foot, wouldn't that cause you to have some resentment? The defense attorneys have to say what they have to say and do what they have to do and I understand all of that. It is the service that they have been hired to provide. But, the community needs to do a gut check! I would love to hear SOMEONE admit that these boys did wrong and will have to "face the music," WITHOUT then launching into a diattribe of mitigating circumstnaces that somehow make it all justifiable.

Whatever the details are in this tragic mess, if these boys committed murder, then justice - albeit not some sort of witch hunt - must ultimately be done. A life was taken. If it wrecks the lives of a handful of young men, that is tragic. But if we are to uphold a semblence of the rule of law, that is what happens when serious crimes are perpetrated.

Part of what has fueled this story as being a "racially motivated" incident is this whole matter of charges of "ethnic intimidation." Let me just say this as I draw to a close. There ought be NO SUCH THINGS as "hate crimes" of ANY kind. If someone was beaten, killed or whatever, charge them for the crime - NOT THEIR THOUGHTS! This is still America and this whole matter of legislating thought is unconstitutional and just downright scary. Where will it end, and who gets to decide what we can and cannot think? And, in the case at hand, I do lament the fact that these young men have been charged with such "crimes."

In closing, in addition to issues concerning immigration, Shenandoah, Shenandoah's parents, police, coaches, teachers, etc. and her mayor better start SERIOUSLY addressing the issue of underage drinking, excessive recreational drinking and drug use in general, and some of the other issues that have contributed to this mess. And in some cases this will involve the adults having to stop some fo the nonsense in their own lives first.

When we have one finger pointed at illegal immigrants, remember that there are three pointing at us. Should we deal with illegal immigrants in Shenandoah? ABSOLUTELY! Should we "sweep our own porch" at the same time? We had better - for the sake of the generation at hand and the generations to come.

Originally Posted by fdell

First, as a Shenandoah resident, I am not sure to which "facts" Ms. Medeshefski is refering, but I wish she would have cited at least some of them. I have heard all sorts of contradictory hearsay. My experience has been that there is a lot of misinformation on both "sides."

While I agree with the stance that Wendi takes on immigration and some of her suggestions to the mayor, I question whether the media's portrayal - though skewed in someways and most definitely self-serving in others - is all that far off. The have cranked this story for all it is worth in order to serve their agenda.

That said, I personally am sick and tired of hearing things from our citizens like, "Oh, isn't it a shame that these poor nice boy's lives might be ruined. I hope the courts aren't too hard on them. ..." Now wait a minute. These young men have been indicted with regard to an incident that involved the BEATING DEATH of another human being (let's call it what it is).

Whatever fallout is happening between the hispanic community and the families of the accused is probably at least in measure driven by this community attitude of, "Oh let the poor boys go! He was an illegal and shouldn't have been here anyway! He was messing around with an underage girl! etc.," as though any of that makes murder all right somehow. There are legal recourses for any of those situations. None of them involve beating someone to death.

Don't Shenandoah residents think that this attitude is going to be understood within the Hispanic sector of the community. Doesn't it make sense to anyone that this devaluing of the life of the victim by seeking to have these young men get a slap on the wrists - at the most - make us look like unjust self-serving people to immigrants - illegal or otherwise? If the shoe were on the other foot, wouldn't that cause you to have some resentment? The defense attorneys have to say what they have to say and do what they have to do and I understand all of that. It is the service that they have been hired to provide. But, the community needs to do a gut check! I would love to hear SOMEONE admit that these boys did wrong and will have to "face the music," WITHOUT then launching into a diattribe of mitigating circumstnaces that somehow make it all justifiable.

Whatever the details are in this tragic mess, if these boys committed murder, then justice - albeit not some sort of witch hunt - must ultimately be done. A life was taken. If it wrecks the lives of a handful of young men, that is tragic. But if we are to uphold a semblence of the rule of law, that is what happens when serious crimes are perpetrated.

Part of what has fueled this story as being a "racially motivated" incident is this whole matter of charges of "ethnic intimidation." Let me just say this as I draw to a close. There ought be NO SUCH THINGS as "hate crimes" of ANY kind. If someone was beaten, killed or whatever, charge them for the crime - NOT THEIR THOUGHTS! This is still America and this whole matter of legislating thought is unconstitutional and just downright scary. Where will it end, and who gets to decide what we can and cannot think? And, in the case at hand, I do lament the fact that these young men have been charged with such "crimes."

In closing, in addition to issues concerning immigration, Shenandoah, Shenandoah's parents, police, coaches, teachers, etc. and her mayor better start SERIOUSLY addressing the issue of underage drinking, excessive recreational drinking and drug use in general, and some of the other issues that have contributed to this mess. And in some cases this will involve the adults having to stop some fo the nonsense in their own lives first.

When we have one finger pointed at illegal immigrants, remember that there are three pointing at us. Should we deal with illegal immigrants in Shenandoah? ABSOLUTELY! Should we "sweep our own porch" at the same time? We had better - for the sake of the generation at hand and the generations to come.

The facts referred to are the ones printed by the Morning Call but ignored by the R&H, and those that came out during the preliminary testimony, that the R&H finally printed.

I am very sure that Wendi is not advocating for the release of the accused boys, nor a slap on the wrist. I guess some people are missing the point. The case against the boys is now a separate issue.

Another issue has arrived that cannot be ignored: Shenandoah has an illegal alien problem. This problem needs to be dealt with legally, through protests, citizen action, and American unity.

The only place I've seen anyone saying "free the three" is on the comments section at the Republican and Herald site.

Wendi has repeatedly said the boys need to be tried and punished for their involvement.

Welcome to ALIPAC, fdell!

Great letter Sea Turtle!!!

fdell,

Don't you worry fdell. These American boys will be held to justice by the flawed, but best in the world, justice system of the United States. In fact, they will be held to the highest standards imaginable in the American justice system and will probably be punished far beyond what what any other person would face because the victim was both a minority and an illegal alien.

The chances these boys will be locked away forever like Charles Manson and face extra demonization in the liberal media is almost assured.

It is truly unfortunate what happened here for all concerned. These boys are still alive true, but their lives are likely ruined and wasted at this point because of the sensationalism being driven by the left on this case.

Yes, the far left illegal alien supporters finally have what looks like a terrible crime committed by some American teens against an illegal alien.

They are going to try to use it as an ace card to throw against the weekly reports of multiple murders, rapes, assaults, child molestations, drug dealing, etc... we see so much of against Americans.

This is what they do. They will accentuate this case and run it up the flagpole like the Duke LaCross Scandal so that every American receives the political message that "White people are bad and evil and likely to harm others because of the color of their skin and you should all learn the lesson from this terrible case"

We will probably see special sob stories on MTV about this soon.

While you have to look long and hard and scour the nation for years to find any example of Americans harming even a single illegal alien....

the thousands upon thousands of Americans being slaughtered, brutally raped, gang raped, assaulted, maimed, run over, or having their children nabbed, identities stolen, taxes stolen, jobs stolen, wages depressed, home foreclosed on, TB tests come back positive, voting rights degraded etc... well they get massive censorship and bias.

For those of us that are very familiar with this material, we see the graphic double standard each day and night.

We can't keep up with all the deaths of Americans killed by illegal aliens or even spend much time focusing on one before we have to run to the next! There are so many that we know about and probably more we don't know about because they do their best to suppress these stories and the status of the perpetrators.

Yes, these boys should be tried and treated with justice for all involved.

But the left wing propaganda politics around this story can go straight to hell.

They would have us focus on a type of crime that makes up less than 1% of the lethal crimes coming to Americans from illegal aliens.

Dead illegal aliens killed by Americans are about as rare as a needle in a haystack.

Dead Americans killed by illegal aliens are the straws in the haystack!

Our national political focus, national state and city policies, attention and resources need to be on the real problem and not the outliers.


William Gheen
President, Americans for Legal Immigration PAC
www.alipac.us

Ask

To All that responded to my last post, Thank you.

I am at a bit of a disadvantage concerning the liberal spin on this story, because I really watch little to no liberal news. Without going back with the proverbial fined tooth comb, I probably agree with 99.95% of all that you've written.

My biggest point was that the town does have some contributing issues here - though racism with regard to hispanics is WAY down on the list. And, the prevailing attitude of many here, where it happened, is way too much, "Yes they probably did it, BUT ......

Something in Mr. Gheen's post was somewhat similar. Mr. Gheen, you wrote, "It is truly unfortunate what happened here for all concerned. These boys are still alive true, but their lives are likely ruined and wasted at this point because of the sensationalism being driven by the left on this case."

Now wait aminute. Their lives are not ruined and wasted because of "the sensationalism being driven by the left on this case." Now if we were talking about one of the handful of border guards that have been wrongfully indicted in the first place and wrongfully imprisoned for doing their jobs, that type of reasoning would be applicable. But for these young men, their lives are ruined and wasted primarily because of their conduct.

That said, is the media going to pile on and gin up pressure for an imbalanced sentence. Of course they are. Are they going to trot out this story, when anyone who pushes for legal immigration when citing the volume of crimes committed by illegal immigrants? You betcha'

On top of that, this is why all of this "ethnic intimidation, hate crimes, thought police, ..." nonsense is so dangerous. You get in a fight, someone dies, you go to trial. Okay. But it shouldn't matter one bit if it was a "racial" issue, an issue about homosexuality, antisemetism, ... Some of that information may be helpful in determining whether the act was premeditated and whether or not their was an intention to go so far as to take a life, but the thought itself ought not be a crime in America. These boys are quite probably going to get unduly hammered - partially because of this.

In closing, I sould simply add that it is tough to not slide down the slippery slope from legitimate righteous indignation, to frustration, to aggravation, to bitterness. We must watch our footing very carefully so that - while we demand that immigration laws be enforced and our borders secured - we do not marginalize our position by substituting wrath for resolve. It's tough to stay on the bubble some times