Two detained in Killings of Transgender Women in Puerto Rico
Law enforcement mentioned that they had categorized the deaths as a dislike criminal activity after the keeps of two people are found in a badly burned car last week.
A week following the body of two transgender female were found in a poorly burned automobile in Puerto Rico, the authorities stated Thursday they got arrested two men associated with the killings along with turned all of them to the F.B.I.
The guys, Juan Carlos Pagan Bonilla, 21, and Sean Diaz de Leon, 19, had been taken into guardianship on Wednesday but I have not already been recharged, relating to Capt. Teddy Morales, the principle of violent research for your police in Humacao, on Puerto Rico’s eastern shore, where the women’s keeps happened to be entirely on April 22.
He mentioned the F.B.I. had bought out the case and was actually investigating Mr. Pagan Bonilla and Mr. Diaz de Leon for feasible civil rights violations.
“We tend to be classifying it a detest crime simply because they comprise interacting making use of the sufferers, and once they realized they certainly were transgender girls, they made a decision to kill all of them,” chief Morales stated on Thursday.
Law enforcement said these were awaiting autopsy results to determine how the women were murdered. Activists need recognized the ladies as Layla Pelaez, 21, and Serena Angelique Velazquez, 32, two family exactly who stayed in new york. Her keeps are discovered after an individual known as 911 to report a burned vehicles under a bridge on a desolate street in Humacao, prior to 5 a.m. on April 22, Captain Morales mentioned.
Mr. Pagan Bonilla and Mr. Diaz de Leon was basically socializing with Ms. Velazquez and Ms. Pelaez on the nights before these were murdered and comprise recorded using one from the women’s social media marketing records, Captain Morales stated.
He mentioned the police have additionally tied up Mr. Pagan Bonilla and Mr. Diaz de Leon to your killings through security camera footage and “scientific evidence,” which he declined to outline. Mr. Pagan Bonilla confessed to participating in the killings, and Mr. Diaz de Leon switched himself in, he mentioned.
Limary Cruz-Rubio, a spokeswoman for the F.B.I.’s San Juan industry workplace, declined to talk about the arrests but stated the bureau routinely collaborates with local, condition and national firms.
“The Bureau try and will be thinking about unlawful behavior which might fall within national legislation,” she said. “However, our very own plan is we really do not verify or deny the existence of research, to safeguard the stability of any feasible investigative energy.”
Mr. Pagan Bonilla and Mr. Diaz de Leon cannot right away become reached for touch upon Thursday nights, also it was not instantly clear should they have solicitors.
If guys are billed, it might signify a switching reason for the management of crimes against L.G.B.T.Q. people in Puerto Rico, that has a disturbing reputation for physical violence against gay and transgender folks, activists said.
Ms. Velazquez and Ms. Pelaez had been the next and 4th transgender group slain in Puerto Rico in the past two months, activists mentioned. These were furthermore considered to be the seventh and 8th transgender or gender-nonconforming visitors to have already been murdered in the United States this current year, based on the individual Rights promotion.
In earlier times 15 several months, 10 L.G.B.T.Q. men and women have been murdered in Puerto Rico, according to Pedro Julio Serrano, a gay rights activist. All but three for the fatalities remain unresolved, he said.
“These arrests tend to be one step when you look at the right course, nevertheless these murders have to be prosecuted as dislike criminal activities,” Mr. Serrano mentioned. “We desire the us government to finish the research in different seven murders of L.G.B.T.Q. folk on island and provide justice for several of them.”
Ms. Velazquez lived-in Queens and Ms. Pelaez inside Bronx. Both have not too long ago traveled to Puerto Rico, and happened to be looking to travel to New York later on this thirty days, relating to loved ones and activists.
Luz Melendez, 29, Ms. Pelaez’s relative, said Mr. Pagan Bonilla and Mr. Diaz de Leon had been arrested after a regional radio facility published files of these on Twitter and individuals started initially to phone the place to spot them.
“We tend to be extremely appreciative of this efforts that officials plus the people input to find which did this,” she said on Thursday.
She stated the images originated two video that Ms. Pelaez have uploaded on her behalf Snapchat and Facebook accounts, which showed their and Ms. Velazquez interacting with Mr. Pagan Bonilla and Mr. Diaz de Leon.
“I saw the movies, plus it appeared like these were spending some time along as company,” she mentioned. “It seemed regular. There seemed to be songs playing inside the credentials. Folks felt fine.”
She mentioned the police have shared with her group merely the people comprise in federal custody.
The killings came per month after Yampi Mendez Arocho, a 19-year-old transgender people, is murdered in Moca, P.R., according to research by the Human Rights venture.
In March, Alexa Negron Luciano, a well-known figure on Puerto Rico social networking who was transgender and homeless, had been recorded to dying after a McDonald’s visitors reported that Ms. Negron have spied on her behalf inside women’s area.
Ms. Negron’s final times — presented inside headlights of a vehicle amid a cackle of fun — happened to be published on social networking, an undeniable fact that activists mentioned underscored the impunity homophobic assailants become whenever committing this type of criminal activities.