ATHENS, Ga. — After the suspect in the slaying of nursing student Laken Riley was revealed to be an undocumented immigrant from Venezuela, students at the University of Georgia and Latino organizations have made pleas against hateful rhetoric directed at Hispanics and immigrants.
The Latino Community Fund Georgia said that it has been “monitoring instances of folks that have been saying that they want to go ‘hunting for immigrants,’” which Gilda Pedraza, executive director and founder of the group, described as “damaging narratives” and “a very real-life threat.”
Pedraza said she has personally seen threatening social media posts that appear to be from local residents. The comments have so scared some of her group’s member organizations and Latino community leaders that they’ve removed their contact information from their websites. “People just don’t feel safe,” she said. “We are trying to really prevent the negative narratives.”
In a campus of nearly 41,000 students, close to 7% of the student population at the University of Georgia identifies as Hispanic.
“It’s horrible that it is even a possibility that people would be targeting us for what one person did. If we did that to every group of people who did something wrong, we’d never have any peace,” Laura Figueroa, a junior at the University of Georgia, told NBC News. “It should not happen in this really sad and scary situation. All I feel is sadness.”
Riley’s body was found Thursday after a friend reported her missing when she didn’t return from a jog that morning in wooded trails within the University of Georgia. The 22-year-old was a UGA graduate studying nursing at another school. University Police Chief Jeff Clark told reporters that Riley had suffered “visible injuries” and died of blunt force trauma. Clark also described Riley’s killing as a “crime of opportunity.”
Jose Antonio Ibarra was identified the next day as a suspect in the young woman’s death. Ibarra, 26,…
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