Spanish youth clash with immigrant gangs
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MADRID: Young Spaniards lit fires and stoned the police in a Madrid suburb over the weekend after fighting with Latin American gang members they blame for beatings, murders and rapes in and around the capital.
Rioters used text messages to summon as many as 1,000 Spanish youths to the suburb of Alcorcón on Sunday after a fight between Spaniards and Latino gang members the previous day led to multiple stabbings, according to the newspaper El País.
"This is a war for the district of Alcorcón against those who come from outside to invade us," a 16-year-old Spaniard, Efe Víctor, told El País.
Spanish youths rampaged through Alcorcón on Sunday looking for Latin Americans and shouting: "Latin Kings out! We're coming for them! We are going to kill them!"
The police came under a hail of stones from the youths and responded with rubber-coated bullets. Nine people were arrested.
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The weekend brawls marked an escalation in tension between young Latin Americans and indigenous Spaniards who say immigrant gangs like the Latin Kings are responsible for a rise in violent crime.
Despite the highest rate of immigration in Europe, Spain has largely avoided tensions between immigrants and the native population.
The Latin Kings and gangs like the Ñetas have recruited young immigrants, many of them from Ecuador, by playing on widespread unemployment.
