NEW YORK ( CNN ) -- Latino immigrants living in Suffolk County , New York , have been living in an environment of intolerance and attacks against them , a report released Wednesday by the Southern Poverty Law Center said . The atmosphere of intolerance is stoked in part by anti-immigrant groups , an indifferent police department , and county leaders themselves , according to the report . The law center , which researches and keeps tabs on hate groups , became interested in the Long Island county after the November 8 , 2008 , murder of Marcelo Lucero , an Ecuadorian immigrant in Patchogue , New York . Prosecutors allege that the killers were a group of teenagers who targeted Latinos as part of a sport they called `` beaner-hopping . '' After four months of research in Suffolk County that included interviews with more than 70 Latino immigrants , 30 local religious leaders and other community leaders , the law center said it found a pattern of ethnic intolerance going back 10 years . Low-level harassment of Latinos in Suffolk County is common , the report said . `` They are regularly taunted , spit upon and pelted with apples , full soda cans , beer bottles and other projectiles , '' the report said . Latino residents riding bikes have been run off the road and others have been beaten with baseball bats or shot at with BB guns , the report said . `` Our feeling is that what we found is really the tip of a very ugly iceberg , '' Mark Potok , who edited the report , said at a news conference Wednesday . `` We were told stories that are absolutely hair-raising . '' The findings point to a disturbing larger trend , the report said . The situation in Suffolk `` is a microcosm of a problem facing the entire United States , where FBI statistics suggest a 40 percent rise in anti-Latino hate crimes between 2003 and 2007 , '' the report said . Tuesday night in Patchogue , the same city where Lucero was killed , a church frequented by Latinos was vandalized with anti-Mexican graffiti , Potok said . The climate of fear in Suffolk County was created in part by anti-immigration voices that found sympathetic ears in the area , according to the report . Anti-immigrant groups , such as the now-defunct Sachem Quality of Life , `` heavily influenced the tone for public discourse on immigration in the area , '' the report said . This stance was adopted by county leaders themselves , the law center said . In August 2001 , county legislator Michael D'Andre said that if his community were `` attacked '' by Latino day laborers , `` we 'll be up in arms ; we 'll be out with baseball bats . '' In March 2007 , another county legislator , Elie Mystal , said of Latino day laborers looking for work , `` If I 'm living in a neighborhood and people are gathering like that , I would load my gun and start shooting , period . '' Both men later apologized for their remarks , according to news reports . Suffolk County Executive Steve Levy , who was also criticized in the report for employing measures seen as anti-immigrant , responded to the report Wednesday with a list of facts he says were distorted or taken out of context by the law center . For instance , a statement in the report that raids evicted day laborers from their homes in Suffolk County was distorted , Levy 's office said . The action in question affected a condemned house where 60 people were living in hazardous conditions , the statement said . The law center 's contention that Levy tried to downplay the significance of the Lucero murder was a misrepresentation of a comment the executive made to a reporter , the statement said . The law center report also said Latinos who had suffered harassment and crimes against them seldom reported them to police because they seemed indifferent . `` Many said police did not take their reports of attacks seriously , often blaming the victim instead , '' the report said . The law center recommended that police receive training to take hate-motivated crimes more seriously , and that area leaders avoid language that could be conducive to inciting violence against immigrants .
New York county studied by Southern Poverty Law Center after slaying . Ecuadorian immigrant was killed in '08 in what prosecutors call a race crime . Latinos `` regularly taunted , spit upon and pelted '' with objects , report says . `` What we found is really the tip of a very ugly iceberg , '' law center spokesman says .