Eduardo Leon Barrera, a 61-year-old day laborer who has been in the United States for 20 years, waits Thursday at a Las Vegas Home Depot store. Two day laborers were robbed and stabbed this week by men who pretended to pick them up for work, police say. Photo by Ruben D. Luevano.

The men suspected of stabbing to death a day laborer during a robbery on Tuesday morning are wanted in connection with a similar robbery and stabbing on Wednesday, Las Vegas police said.

"We think we have two suspects preying on day laborers," Lt. Lew Roberts of the Las Vegas police's homicide unit said. "And if they (the victims) put up any type of fight they get stabbed."

The two suspects, who are still at large, picked up four Hispanic day laborers from near a Home Depot on Charleston and Lamb Boulevards on Tuesday morning and pretended to hire them for work, police said.

After driving the four workers around, the suspects took them behind an abandoned building on the 2600 block of Sherwood Street, robbed them and stabbed one of the men to death, police said.

The Clark County Coroner's office did not have a positive identification of the dead man Thursday.

About 9:30 a.m. Wednesday, men who looked similar to the first two suspects picked up four day laborers at Bonanza Road and Rancho Drive, luring the group into a car with a promise of work, police said.

The men then drove the suspects to an undisclosed location and robbed them. During the robbery, one of the day laborers was stabbed, police said.

The victim was treated and released from a local hospital but was seriously injured, police said.

"If men are looking for work, they have to be really careful about who picks them up," Roberts said.

Because many of the Las Vegas Valley's illegal immigrants don't use banks and are often afraid to report crimes, Las Vegas police said, they have been targeted recently for street robberies.

From July 1 to Aug. 15, Hispanics were victims in 76 of the 92 street robberies in the northeast area of the valley, according to Las Vegas police.

Hispanics made up 39 percent of all robbery victims valleywide during the same time period, Las Vegas police said. Hispanics make up about 25 percent of the county's population, according to recent U.S. Census statistics.

Jorge Garcia Hernandez, who was waiting for job offers on the sidewalk near the Home Depot on Charleston at Lamb on Thursday afternoon, said many day laborers in the valley have heard about the recent rash of violent robberies and are taking precautions.

The 36-year-old immigrant from Mexico said workers are writing down the license plate numbers of vehicles they get into and avoid working solo jobs.

He said he won't get into a car with black men because the suspects in the violent robberies were described as black.

Police said the suspects, more specifically, are believed to be in their 30s, and one is about 6 feet tall while the other is about 6 feet 3 inches tall.

Hernandez said he never had any problems in the three years he has been in Las Vegas. But in the past week, he had one man hire him for work who tried to get out of paying him after the work was done.

"This type of stuff never happened before," he said.

Another day laborer, 61-year-old Eduardo Leon Barrera, said he tries to examine any official documents showing the potential employers are legitimate -- such as contractor documents.

He also writes down license plate numbers of cars he gets into and tries to copy down any writing on the vehicles, such as company names or contractor license numbers.

Barrera and Hernandez each said many illegal immigrants wouldn't go to the police if they are victims of a crime because they fear deportation.

Las Vegas police say that kind of fear is unfounded.

"Metro is not interested in your immigration status," Lt. Steve Menger said.

Menger said the number of robberies in the northeast has declined since the police started a public awareness campaign in early September.

He said that during a seven-day period a little over three weeks ago, there were 22 total robberies in the entire northeast area. A week ago, there were 13.

He didn't have the robberies broken down by the race of the victim.

"This one incident (the fatal robbery) is very sad, but overall the drop in robberies in the Northeast is fantastic," he said.