Two Arrested in Killings of Transgender feamales in Puerto Rico
The police stated they’d categorized the deaths as a hate crime after the keeps of two people comprise present a poorly burned automobile last week.
Per week following the system of two transgender lady had been found in a defectively burned car in Puerto Rico, the police mentioned Thursday which they have detained two boys relating to the killings and had switched all of them up gay snapchat hookups to the F.B.I.
The males, Juan Carlos Pagan Bonilla, 21, and Sean Diaz de Leon, 19, happened to be taken into custody on Wednesday but have perhaps not become energized, relating to Capt. Teddy Morales, the principle of unlawful research when it comes down to police in Humacao, on Puerto Rico’s east shore, where women’s remains comprise entirely on April 22.
The guy stated the F.B.I. had taken over the outcome and ended up being investigating Mr. Pagan Bonilla and Mr. Diaz de Leon for feasible civil rights violations.
“We include classifying it a detest crime since they are socializing using the victims, as soon as they discovered they certainly were transgender females, they made a decision to destroy all of them,” master Morales mentioned on Thursday.
The authorities mentioned they certainly were awaiting autopsy brings about regulate how the ladies were slain. Activists has identified the ladies as Layla Pelaez, 21, and Serena Angelique Velazquez, 32, two family who lived-in new york. Their keeps happened to be found after you labeled as 911 to document a burned car under a bridge on a desolate path in Humacao, before 5 a.m. on April 22, head Morales said.
Mr. Pagan Bonilla and Mr. Diaz de Leon were socializing with Ms. Velazquez and Ms. Pelaez throughout the evening before these were murdered and are tape-recorded on a single associated with women’s social media marketing profile, chief Morales stated.
The guy mentioned the authorities had additionally tied Mr. Pagan Bonilla and Mr. Diaz de Leon on killings through surveillance camera video footage and “scientific facts,” that he declined to outline. Mr. Pagan Bonilla confessed to taking part in the killings, and Mr. Diaz de Leon transformed himself in, the guy said.
Limary Cruz-Rubio, a spokeswoman for F.B.I.’s San Juan area workplace, decreased to talk about the arrests but stated the bureau consistently collaborates with local, county and national agencies.
“The Bureau is actually and can often be contemplating criminal conduct which may fall within federal jurisdiction,” she stated. “However, our plan is we really do not confirm or refuse the presence of investigations, to safeguard the ethics of every feasible investigative work.”
Mr. Pagan Bonilla and Mr. Diaz de Leon would never immediately feel reached for discuss Thursday nights, and it wasn’t instantly obvious as long as they had attorneys.
If the male is energized, it can signify a turning reason for the control of criminal activities against L.G.B.T.Q. people in Puerto Rico, that has a disturbing reputation for assault against homosexual and transgender folks, activists said.
Ms. Velazquez and Ms. Pelaez comprise the third and last transgender people murdered in Puerto Rico in the last two months, activists said. They were also considered to be the seventh and eighth transgender or gender-nonconforming individuals being killed in the us in 2010, in accordance with the peoples legal rights venture.
Before 15 several months, 10 L.G.B.T.Q. men and women have become killed in Puerto Rico, per Pedro Julio Serrano, a gay legal rights activist. Just about three on the fatalities stays unsolved, the guy stated.
“These arrests are one step when you look at the proper path, nevertheless these murders have to be prosecuted as detest crimes,” Mr. Serrano stated. “We desire the us government in order to complete the investigations in other seven murders of L.G.B.T.Q. group from the isle and provide justice for many of them.”
Ms. Velazquez lived in Queens and Ms. Pelaez when you look at the Bronx. Both got lately journeyed to Puerto Rico, and so they happened to be about to travel back again to New York later this period, in accordance with family and activists.
Luz Melendez, 29, Ms. Pelaez’s cousin, mentioned Mr. Pagan Bonilla and Mr. Diaz de Leon comprise detained after a regional radio section posted images of these on Twitter and folks begun to name the place to recognize all of them.
“We become awesome appreciative on the efforts that the authorities additionally the people devote to find which did this,” she stated on Thursday.
She said the photographs originated in two videos that Ms. Pelaez have uploaded on her Snapchat and myspace records, which confirmed their and Ms. Velazquez interacting with Mr. Pagan Bonilla and Mr. Diaz de Leon.
“I noticed the films, and it also seemed like they certainly were spending time with each other as pals,” she stated. “It felt typical. There was clearly tunes playing when you look at the credentials. Every Person seemed good.”
She said the police got told her parents only that people happened to be in federal custody.
The killings arrived per month after Yampi Mendez Arocho, a 19-year-old transgender guy, is murdered in Moca, P.R., based on the Human legal rights promotion.
In February, Alexa Negron Luciano, a famous figure on Puerto Rico social networking who was transgender and homeless, had been recorded to demise after a McDonald’s consumer complained that Ms. Negron have spied on her from inside the women’s room.
Ms. Negron’s final moments — presented in the headlights of an automobile amid a cackle of fun — comprise published on social media, a fact that activists stated underscored the impunity homophobic attackers feeling whenever committing these criminal activities.
