The police stated they had categorized the fatalities as a dislike criminal activity after the remains of two ladies are within a severely burned car a week ago.
Each week after the systems of two transgender females were found in a terribly burned vehicles in Puerto Rico, law enforcement said Thursday that they had arrested two males associated with the killings along with switched all of them over to the F.B.I.
The males, Juan Carlos Pagan Bonilla, 21, and Sean Diaz de Leon, 19, had been taken into custody on Wednesday but I have maybe not already been recharged, relating to Capt. Teddy Morales, the chief of criminal investigations when it comes down to police in Humacao, on Puerto Rico’s eastern coast, where the women’s keeps had been entirely on April 22.
The guy stated the F.B.I. have absorbed the situation and had been examining Mr. Pagan Bonilla and Mr. Diaz de Leon for feasible civil-rights violations.
“We become classifying it as a dislike crime because they happened to be socializing making use of the victims, and when they learned they certainly were transgender girls, they made a decision to destroy all of them,” chief Morales said on Thursday.
The police mentioned they were looking forward to autopsy results to determine how the ladies have been slain. Activists have actually determined the ladies as Layla Pelaez, 21, and Serena Angelique Velazquez, 32, two friends who lived-in new york. Their particular keeps were discover after people known as 911 to submit a burned auto under a bridge on a desolate highway in Humacao, just before 5 a.m. on April 22, chief Morales mentioned.
Mr. Pagan Bonilla and Mr. Diaz de Leon had been interacting with Ms. Velazquez and Ms. Pelaez from the nights before they were killed and are taped using one of this women’s social networking account, master Morales mentioned.
He mentioned the police got furthermore fastened Mr. Pagan Bonilla and Mr. Diaz de Leon on the killings through surveillance camera video footage and “scientific facts,” which he decreased to detail. Mr. Pagan Bonilla admitted to playing the killings, and Mr. Diaz de Leon transformed themselves in, the guy stated.
Limary Cruz-Rubio, a spokeswoman when it comes to F.B.I.’s San Juan industry company, declined to talk about the arrests but mentioned the agency regularly collaborates with local, county and federal organizations.
“The Bureau was and will always be thinking about criminal conduct that might fall within national jurisdiction,” she said. “However, all of our plan try we really do not verify or reject the presence of investigations, to safeguard the integrity of every possible investigative effort.”
Mr. Pagan Bonilla and Mr. Diaz de Leon couldn’t immediately getting attained for touch upon Thursday night, and it wasn’t immediately obvious as long as they got attorneys.
If the male is billed, it can represent a turning part of the control of criminal activities against L.G.B.T.Q grindr chat. folks in Puerto Rico, which has a disturbing reputation of physical violence against gay and transgender folk, activists mentioned.
Ms. Velazquez and Ms. Pelaez were the third and 4th transgender folk killed in Puerto Rico in the past two months, activists stated. These people were additionally considered to be the 7th and 8th transgender or gender-nonconforming visitors to happen slain in the usa in 2010, according to research by the person liberties Campaign.
Before 15 several months, 10 L.G.B.T.Q. men and women have already been slain in Puerto Rico, in accordance with Pedro Julio Serrano, a gay legal rights activist. Just about three of fatalities stay unresolved, the guy stated.
“These arrests were a step inside best way, but these murders need to be prosecuted as dislike criminal activities,” Mr. Serrano stated. “We urge the government in order to complete the research during the other seven murders of L.G.B.T.Q. visitors regarding island and offer justice for several of them.”
Ms. Velazquez lived-in Queens and Ms. Pelaez within the Bronx. Both got lately journeyed to Puerto Rico, in addition they happened to be about to travel returning to nyc later on this month, according to members of the family and activists.
Luz Melendez, 29, Ms. Pelaez’s relative, stated Mr. Pagan Bonilla and Mr. Diaz de Leon are arrested after a regional radio station published graphics of those on fb and individuals began to phone the section to identify all of them.
“We were extremely appreciative associated with efforts that officials and the neighborhood place in to find just who performed this,” she said on Thursday.
She said the images originated two movies that Ms. Pelaez got published on her behalf Snapchat and fb accounts, which revealed this lady and Ms. Velazquez interacting with Mr. Pagan Bonilla and Mr. Diaz de Leon.
“I spotted the videos, and it also appeared like they certainly were spending time with each other as buddies,” she mentioned. “It appeared regular. There seemed to be songs playing inside the history. Folks seemed fine.”
She stated the police got shared with her household merely your men had been in national custody.
The killings came monthly after Yampi Mendez Arocho, a 19-year-old transgender people, was slain in Moca, P.R., based on the peoples Rights venture.
In February, Alexa Negron Luciano, a famous figure on Puerto Rico social media marketing who was simply transgender and homeless, got recorded to dying after a McDonald’s buyer complained that Ms. Negron had spied on her when you look at the women’s place.
Ms. Negron’s best moments — framed in headlights of an automobile amid a cackle of fun — had been uploaded on social media marketing, an undeniable fact that activists mentioned underscored the impunity homophobic attackers believe when committing this type of criminal activities.
