When immigrants caught a notorious serial killer

Forty years later, there are lessons in the incident about community

- BY SHELBY GRAD

NIGHT STALKER Richard Ramirez, flanked by attorneys Daro Inouye, left, and Randall Martin, in a San Francisco courtroom in 1990.

It is hard not to mark the anniversary of the Ramirez capture in this summer of ICE without looking at it at least in part through the prism of immigration.

The Night Stalker and today’s raids

Like now, the mid-1980s were marked by crackdowns on illegal immigration and rhetoric about America being “overrun.”

The summer of 1985 saw a series of high-profile federal immigration raids, including one that temporarily shuttered the Santa Anita racetrack.

But such events lived in the shadow of the Night Stalker. He targeted affluent, white suburbs, and the seeming randomness of the crimes left the region terrified.

Against this backdrop, there was undeniable symbolism when the barrio brought the killer of suburbanites to justice.