Two detained in Killings of Transgender Women in Puerto Rico
The authorities said they’d classified the fatalities as a hate criminal activity following stays of two girls happened to be within a severely burned auto last week.
Per week following figures of two transgender girls happened to be present a poorly burned vehicle in Puerto Rico, the police mentioned Thursday they have arrested two men associated with the killings together with turned them up to the F.B.I.
The guys, Juan Carlos Pagan Bonilla, 21, and Sean Diaz de Leon, 19, comprise taken into guardianship on Wednesday but I have not come billed, in accordance with Capt. Teddy Morales, the chief of unlawful investigations for any police in Humacao, on Puerto Rico’s eastern coast, in which the women’s stays happened to be entirely on April 22.
He stated the F.B.I. have taken over the fact and is investigating Mr. Pagan Bonilla and Mr. Diaz de Leon for possible civil-rights violations.
“We become classifying it a dislike crime because they comprise socializing using victims, as soon as they discovered they were transgender women, they made a decision to destroy all of them,” master Morales said on Thursday.
Law Tinder vs. Happn enforcement said they were looking forward to autopsy results to determine how the women was basically slain. Activists have determined the women as Layla Pelaez, 21, and Serena Angelique Velazquez, 32, two family exactly who stayed in New York City. Their unique remains comprise discovered after you labeled as 911 to submit a burned automobile under a bridge on a desolate roadway in Humacao, right before 5 a.m. on April 22, head Morales mentioned.
Mr. Pagan Bonilla and Mr. Diaz de Leon had been interacting with Ms. Velazquez and Ms. Pelaez from the evening before they certainly were slain and happened to be recorded on a single of this women’s social media marketing reports, Captain Morales mentioned.
The guy stated the authorities had also fastened Mr. Pagan Bonilla and Mr. Diaz de Leon with the killings through security camera footage and “scientific evidence,” that he decreased to outline. Mr. Pagan Bonilla admitted to taking part in the killings, and Mr. Diaz de Leon switched themselves in, he stated.
Limary Cruz-Rubio, a spokeswoman for F.B.I.’s San Juan industry workplace, decreased to discuss the arrests but said the agency routinely collaborates with local, condition and national companies.
“The Bureau try and can often be thinking about violent make that might fall within federal jurisdiction,” she stated. “However, our coverage is we really do not verify or refute the existence of research, to safeguard the ethics of every possible investigative work.”
Mr. Pagan Bonilla and Mr. Diaz de Leon cannot instantly feel achieved for comment on Thursday night, and it also wasn’t right away obvious if they got lawyers.
If the the male is billed, it might express a turning part of the control of criminal activities against L.G.B.T.Q. folks in Puerto Rico, which has a disturbing reputation of violence against homosexual and transgender group, activists said.
Ms. Velazquez and Ms. Pelaez were the third and last transgender folks murdered in Puerto Rico in the past 8 weeks, activists said. These were also believed to be the seventh and eighth transgender or gender-nonconforming visitors to currently slain in the usa this present year, in accordance with the peoples liberties promotion.
Prior to now 15 several months, 10 L.G.B.T.Q. folks have become killed in Puerto Rico, relating to Pedro Julio Serrano, a gay liberties activist. All but three for the fatalities stay unsolved, the guy stated.
“These arrests were a step for the right movement, nevertheless these murders have to be prosecuted as hate crimes,” Mr. Serrano mentioned. “We need the government in order to complete the investigations during the additional seven murders of L.G.B.T.Q. everyone in the island and provide fairness for many ones.”
Ms. Velazquez lived in Queens and Ms. Pelaez into the Bronx. Both got recently moved to Puerto Rico, in addition they had been looking to travel back again to New York afterwards this thirty days, based on friends and activists.
Luz Melendez, 29, Ms. Pelaez’s cousin, said Mr. Pagan Bonilla and Mr. Diaz de Leon were arrested after an area broadcast facility uploaded files ones on Twitter and other people began to call the facility to recognize them.
“We are extremely appreciative associated with perform that the officials while the people input to track down whom did this,” she mentioned on Thursday.
She stated the images originated two movies that Ms. Pelaez had uploaded on her Snapchat and Facebook account, which revealed the woman and Ms. Velazquez interacting with Mr. Pagan Bonilla and Mr. Diaz de Leon.
“we watched the videos, therefore seemed like they certainly were spending some time with each other as friends,” she stated. “It felt typical. There was audio playing from inside the back ground. Everyone appeared okay.”
She said the authorities had told her group only that men are in federal custody.
The killings arrived monthly after Yampi Mendez Arocho, a 19-year-old transgender people, was actually murdered in Moca, P.R., according to research by the person legal rights promotion.
In February, Alexa Negron Luciano, a popular figure on Puerto Rico social networking who was simply transgender and homeless, is shot to passing after a McDonald’s client complained that Ms. Negron have spied on her behalf when you look at the women’s room.
Ms. Negron’s final moments — framed in headlights of a vehicle amid a cackle of laughter — happened to be submitted on social media marketing, a fact that activists stated underscored the impunity homophobic attackers feel when committing this type of crimes.