Federal authorities have opened a criminal investigation into reports of a string of assaults against Latinos on Long Island, and are weighing whether to begin an inquiry into the Suffolk County Police Department’s handling of such crimes, a spokesman for the Justice Department said on Monday The spokesman, Scot Montrey, said the department was seeking to file criminal civil-rights charges against people accused of attacking Latinos. He declined to say which or how many incidents were under investigation. In a separate action, he said, the department’s special litigation division is reviewing whether an investigation of police practices is warranted. The announcement came just over two months after Marcelo Lucero, an Ecuadorean immigrant, was killed in Patchogue, in Suffolk County, during an MORE
