NEW YORK, NY September 02, 2009 —A report from a national civil rights group says Latino immigrants in Long Island's Suffolk County are regularly harassed, taunted, and pelted with objects hurled from cars.

The Southern Poverty Law Center report is based on interviews with more than 70 Latino immigrants in recent months. It says many of them reported being beaten with baseball bats and other objects and says some local politicians have encouraged such attacks with inflammatory rhetoric.

While the report charges that local law enforcement fails to take hate crimes seriously and that immigrants are afraid of police. County officials have said they are attentive to bias crimes.

The report comes just days after two teenagers pleaded not guilty in an alleged hate crime attack on an Ecuadorean day laborer. In November, another Ecuadorian immigrant was stabbed and killed. Seven teenagers have pleaded not guilty to charges related to his death.