By Allyson Chiu @ WashingtonPost.com, June 26

When Beronica Ruiz went to pick up her 12-year-old son from school in Passaic, N.J., last week, it wasn’t the first time that day she needed to be there. Hours earlier, Ruiz and her husband had met with the school’s vice principal over concerns that their son was threatened by other students who allegedly chanted “All Mexicans should go back behind the wall,” the family’s attorney told The Washington Post.

The New Jersey couple were upset the school didn’t inform them about the taunts but left the June 19 meeting feeling “somewhat reassured” after the vice principal said he would contact the students and their parents, said Daniel Santiago, the lawyer.  But as Ruiz, who was pushing her 1-year-old daughter in a stroller, walked home from Passaic Gifted and Talented Academy School No. 20 with her son that afternoon, the boy noticed they weren’t alone. Three boys trailed behind — and he recognized them.

“[He] turned to his mother and said, ‘Mom, those are the children that were threatening me, and they’re following us,’ ” Santiago said. Moments later, a 13-year-old boy allegedly attacked. Santiago said the boy first punched Ruiz’s son in the face. When the 35-year-old mother tried to step in, the teen hit her and “threw her to the ground,” causing her to lose consciousness, Santiago said. “This was a brutal hate crime, and it was committed by a 13-year-old,” Santiago said. “I don’t know what circumstances could give rise to a 13-year-old boy having such hate in his heart that he would commit this brutal attack and leave a woman essentially to die in front of her children without any remorse or any twinge of conscience.” [.....]

The 13-year-old suspect is African American, Santiago said. Ruiz and her husband are Mexican and are in the United States on work permits while they await green cards, but their children are American citizens, he said [....]