His cousin's fatal shooting early Tuesday still seems like a dream, he says. But he remembers the epithet hurled toward them just before the shots rang out.

        “(Expletive) Mexicans!”

Rangel-Tapia

        Then a black man in the passenger seat of the other vehicle pulled out a gun and fired, the witness, who speaks only Spanish, said Thursday. The witness is not being identified because of concerns for his safety.

        One bullet grazed the head of the witness, who is 19. The other killed his cousin, Ricardo Rangel-Tapia, 23.

        Police on Thursday were still searching for the shooter and three other people in the same car. The incident — which police may classify as one of the city's first hate crimes against Hispanics — occurred at 2:25 a.m. Tuesday at Highland and McMillan streets in Mount Auburn.

        Mayor Charlie Luken said he was concerned about the possibly racial motive for the shooting. Monday, the mayor will meet with representatives of Su Casa Hispanic Ministry in Carthage to discuss the Hispanic community's concerns about the incident.

        After the April protests and riots, there was an uptick of hate crimes in Cincinnati, both black on white and white on black, authorities say.

HATE CRIMES

In 2001, the Cincinnati Police Department recorded 37 incidents of ethnic intimidation and 25 arrests. Police did not have statistics for 2000 available Thursday.     In 2001, the Southern Poverty Law Center — a nonprofit agency that combats hate, intolerance and discrimination through education and litigation — tracked 14 hate-crime incidents in Ohio through police and media reports. Of those, six were in Greater Cincinnati.None of the eight hate crimes the center tracked in Kentucky or 22 in Indiana was in the Cincinnati area.

        Most recently, a black Northside man was beaten and stabbed four times in the back in a racially motivated attack as he walked home from a bus stop in November. Following Sept. 11, Tristate Muslims and residents of Middle Eastern descent reported a smattering of hate incidents, including tires slashed and a dead rabbit tossed on a family's porch.

        An ethnic intimidation or “hate crime” charge is a secondary offense, tacked onto a primary charge, which makes punishments tougher.

        If ethnic intimidation is proved, it can be used, for example, to bump up an offense that carries a six-month jail term to a felony and a one-year sentence.

        Friends and family of Mr. Rangel-Tapia expressed shock and sadness over his death, describing him as a quiet, hard-working hotel cook who every week sent $100 to $300 back to his wife and parents in the Mexican state of Michoacan.

        As many as 50 residents of that state, all friends or relatives of Mr. Rangel-Tapia, work and live in the Norwood area. They are now trying to collect the $5,000 needed to ship his body home.

        Su Casa, a Catholic ministry for Hispanics, is accepting donations and coordinating the arrangements. A priest at St. Charles Church plans to hold a service on the day before the body is returned.

        Donations for the burial of Mr. Rangel-Tapia can be sent to Su Casa Hispanic Ministry at 7036 Fairpark, Cincinnati, 45216.

        “He was a very nice, young kid,” said Janet Madera, co-owner of Madera's Latin & American Market in Norwood. “He lived upstairs with a cousin and they came in here three, four times a week, sent money to Mexico, bought phone cards, bought food.”

        Mr. Rangel-Tapia's cousin was one of three Mexican immigrants who were in the car with him when the shots were fired.

        Here is his description of the incident:

        The four men were returning home from “Latin Night” at the Mad Frog bar in Mount Auburn. They stopped at a red light. As they chatted and and listened to Spanish music, another car pulled alongside.

        The Mexican men all glanced over, then continued their conversation. But out of the corner of his eye, the witness could see the driver of the other car — a heavyset black woman with glasses — gesturing angrily. Her window was rolled up, but he thinks the gist of her words was, “What are you looking at?”

        Somebody inside the other vehicle rolled down a window, and the driver yelled the epithet about Mexicans, the witness said. Then the man in the passenger seat pulled out a gun and fired, he said.

        The suspects' car is described as a cream-colored sedan, possibly a Honda, occupied by two men and two women, all African-American.

        Cincinnati Police Lt. Roger Wolf says he has no reason to doubt the witnesses' version of events, but he's also hesitant to classify the crime as hate-driven without hearing from the occupants of the other car.

        “People ask me, "Was it a hate crime?' I've got one side of the story right now, and I've been here long enough to know anything's possible,” Lt. Wolf said.

        All four people in the cream-colored car are considered suspects, he said, but that could change if the two people in the back seat come forward to explain what happened.

        “I would like them to be witnesses instead of suspects,” Lt. Wolf said.

        In the case of Mr. Rangel-Tapia's death, an ethnic intimidation charge would mean little because a murder charge already would carry stiff penalties, said Hamilton County Prosecutor Mike Allen.

        Still, “If it can be demonstrated that those offenses were racially motivated, then we'll present that information to a grand jury,” Mr. Allen said.

        Lt. Wolf said he did not know whether Mr. Rangel-Tapia was legally in the country and that it didn't matter to his investigation.

        On Thursday, Mr. Rangel-Tapia's cousin sat in his living room, gazing at a Spanish-language version of Scooby Doo. Small children darted around the apartment, which was immaculately clean down to the numerous stuffed animals lined up neatly along the back of the couch.

        “It's unbelievable,” the young man said in Spanish, recalling the shooting. “It seems like a dream.”

        Some people from Mexico come to Cincinnati because they have heard it is a peaceful city where companies pay good wages, he said.

        And now?

        “Well, now I have seen that there are people who don't like Mexicans,” he said.

        With information, call Crime Stoppers 352-3040.

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