Two Latino gang members were indicted on hate crime charges in an attack on 4 Black youths. Today’s LA Times article:

Authorities allege they beat a young black man with a pipe and then turned their threats and racial epithets toward members of a black household where he fled. …

[U.S. Attorney Andre] Birotte said the alleged actions of the pair were part of a pattern of racial intimidation of blacks by their alleged gang, including racial graffiti. “The Compton 155 gang has racial animus toward African Americans, and the gang has a practice of harassing and attacking African Americans with a goal of eliminating them from the west side of Compton,” he said.

“The gang proudly proclaimed that they are “nk” with ‘n’ standing for an unfortunate well-known racial epithet and ‘k’ for killers,” he said. …

The attacks on the family are the latest in a series of violent incidents in which Latino gangs targeted blacks in parts of greater Los Angeles over the last decade. Birotte noted that his office last year charged several Azusa gang members with hate crimes. In the Compton case, both men could face up to 10 years in prison for each of the five charges.

Compton, with a population of about 97,000, was predominantly black for many years. It is now 65% Latino and 33% black, according to the 2010 U.S. census.