A 70-percent increase in assaults and a record number of crime reports have made for a long, hot summer in Burley.
And while some believe violence has risen along with racial tensions, Hispanic leaders contend they have not seen a rise in white-Hispanic confrontations this summer."I don't think we have a racial problem that we need to be addressing at this time," Rupert attorney Raymundo Pena told the Twin Falls Times-News.
But Cassia County Sheriff Billy Crystal said "without a doubt" there were racial undertones in the southern Idaho city of 8,800 people.
"It kind of fluctuates," Crystal said. "I'd say it's on the higher end right now."
When 17-year-old Daniel Denton, who is white, was stabbed by a Hispanic youth on July 28, it raised tensions in a town that long has welcomed migrant farm workers.
The 1990 Census placed the Hispanic population in Cassia County at more than 13 percent, but seasonal migrant workers make the real numbers much higher.
Crystal said no one had been arrested in the case, but the primary suspect is from an established Minidoka County family.
Still, the perception that out-of-work migrants are at the heart of the city's problems is a persistent one, said Sheriff's Department Detective Dave Tracy.
Poor crop years in Texas and California sent waves of migrant workers north, Tracy said. Housing filled up early this year, forcing many migrant workers to stay in more visible areas of town, he said.
Men and women who can't find work naturally congregate in the city park near some of the crowded apartments where they live and around a Mexican food market across the street, Tracy said.
While locals find it easy to blame out-of-towners for the city's problems, the locals must accept much of the responsibility, he said.
Laura Gillett, who is in charge of hiring workers for a large Burley processing plant, said the migrants are "my best workers. I very seldom have to dismiss one of them."
But outside the plant gates, the situation changes, she said.
"They're fine, if you take them one by one," Gillett said. "But if you put them together, they will get drunk and cause problems."
"I don't feel threatened myself, but I wouldn't go into some of these bars, even in the daytime," said Gerald Whitesides, owner of Bell Moving and Storage.
Whitesides is still cleaning up after part of his business was burned by an arsonist in May. An illegal alien from Mexico was recently sentenced to six years in prison for the crime.
"You didn't use to hear about all this happening," Whitesides said.
Gumby Morales, 17, said fights break out because people are bored, not for racial motivations.
"Hispanics have their own little groups, but it's not really a racial thing," Morales said. There's little for young people to do in Burley except walk the streets and get into trouble, he said.
Those attitudes have always been around, and they aren't any more or less common in the Hispanic community, said Al Aragon, area manager for the Idaho Migrant Council.
"Troublemakers are troublemakers," Aragon said.
Pena said area streets seem to be as safe now as they ever were, but Cassia County Sheriff's Department statistics show otherwise.
From May 1 to Aug. 26 last year, deputies responded to 70 assault calls. During the same period this year, the department has received 120 assault calls - an increase of more than 70 percent.
Lt. Jim Higens said most of those assaults happen in the city of Burley.
And he said the total number of calls coming into the department in July set a record, topping 400 for the first time ever.
But some suggest the statistics reflect only a small fraction of what actually occurs.
The police don't often hear about what really happens on the streets because migrant workers, especially the ones here illegally, keep their problems to themselves, Morales said.
He compared the police to "a red-headed stepchild in a black neighborhood. Nobody tells them anything."