Washington, DC – In a meeting today with U.S. Attorney General Alberto Gonzales, Janet Murguía, President and CEO of the National Council of La Raza (NCLR), the largest national Hispanic civil rights and advocacy organization in the U.S., asked for a Justice Department review into the brutal beating and sexual assault of David Ritcheson, a 16-year-old Hispanic resident of Houston, Texas. Ritcheson remains in extremely critical condition at a Houston-area hospital.

“Under any circumstances, this is a horrific and tragic crime. That the young man’s ethnicity may have played a role in the severity and savagery of the assault is appalling and unbelievable,” stated Murguía.

“Today we urged Attorney General Gonzales to use the full authority of the Department of Justice to look into this matter, and we very much appreciate that he agreed to do so. We also pledged to him that NCLR would do whatever it could to assist in this effort,” concluded Murguía.