Law enforcement stated that they had classified the fatalities as a hate criminal activity following the stays of two women are present in a badly burned car last week.
Each week following bodies of two transgender people comprise within a poorly burned auto in Puerto Rico, the authorities said Thursday they had detained two people relating to the killings along with transformed them to the F.B.I.
The males, Juan Carlos Pagan Bonilla, 21, and Sean Diaz de Leon, 19, comprise used into custody on Wednesday but I have maybe not become charged, in accordance with Capt. Teddy Morales, the chief of violent investigations the authorities in Humacao, on Puerto Rico’s east coast, in which the women’s stays comprise available on April 22.
He said the F.B.I. got bought out your situation and ended up being investigating Mr. Pagan Bonilla and Mr. Diaz de Leon for feasible civil-rights violations.
“We is classifying it as a dislike criminal activity simply because they comprise socializing with the sufferers, and when they revealed they were transgender lady, they made a decision to kill all of them,” master Morales said on Thursday.
Law enforcement mentioned these were looking forward to autopsy results to decide how the ladies were killed. Activists posses determined the women as Layla Pelaez, 21, and Serena Angelique Velazquez, 32, two pals exactly who lived-in New York City. Their unique keeps happened to be discover after one also known as 911 to document a burned car under a bridge on a desolate highway in Humacao, just before 5 a.m. on April 22, chief Morales stated.
Mr. Pagan Bonilla and Mr. Diaz de Leon was basically socializing with Ms. Velazquez and Ms. Pelaez regarding the night before these were killed and are recorded on a single in the women’s social media profile, chief Morales stated.
He mentioned the police had in addition tied Mr. Pagan Bonilla and Mr. Diaz de Leon into the killings through security camera footage and “scientific evidence,” that he decreased to detail. Mr. Pagan Bonilla admitted to participating in the killings, and Mr. Diaz de Leon switched themselves in, he said.
Limary Cruz-Rubio, a spokeswoman for all the F.B.I.’s San Juan industry office, declined to talk about the arrests but mentioned the bureau routinely collaborates with regional, county and national firms.
“The agency try and can be contemplating violent run which could drop within federal jurisdiction,” she said. “However, the policy try we really do not confirm or refute the existence of investigations, to protect the ethics of any feasible investigative work.”
Mr. Pagan Bonilla and Mr. Diaz de Leon would never instantly be hit for touch upon Thursday nights, and it also was not immediately obvious should they had lawyers.
When the the male is charged, it may express a switching part of the handling of criminal activities against L.G.B.T.Q. folks in Puerto Rico, that has a disturbing reputation for violence against homosexual and transgender everyone, activists mentioned.
Ms. Velazquez and Ms. Pelaez happened to be the third and 4th transgender someone killed in Puerto Rico in the past 8 weeks, activists stated. These people were in addition thought to be the seventh and 8th transgender or gender-nonconforming people to are slain in america this present year, according to the individual liberties strategy.
Previously 15 several months, 10 L.G.B.T.Q. individuals have been killed in Puerto Rico, relating to Pedro Julio Serrano, a gay liberties activist. All but three associated with fatalities stays unsolved, he mentioned.
“These arrests tend to be one step when you jaka jest najlepsza miД™dzyrasowa strona randkowa look at the best direction, nevertheless these murders have to be prosecuted as detest crimes,” Mr. Serrano mentioned. “We urge government entities to finish the investigations from inside the some other seven murders of L.G.B.T.Q. anyone in the area and provide fairness regarding of them.”
Ms. Velazquez lived in Queens and Ms. Pelaez for the Bronx. Both got lately journeyed to Puerto Rico, and so they are about to travel back again to ny afterwards this month, according to loved ones and activists.
Luz Melendez, 29, Ms. Pelaez’s relative, said Mr. Pagan Bonilla and Mr. Diaz de Leon were detained after an area radio section published artwork of them on Facebook and people began to phone the station to understand all of them.
“We is extremely appreciative with the operate that authorities and community devote to obtain just who performed this,” she stated on Thursday.
She mentioned the photographs originated from two video clips that Ms. Pelaez have uploaded on her behalf Snapchat and Twitter records, which revealed her and Ms. Velazquez interacting with Mr. Pagan Bonilla and Mr. Diaz de Leon.
“we watched the video clips, plus it appeared like these people were spending some time collectively as family,” she said. “It felt normal. There was music playing inside the back ground. Folks appeared great.”
She stated the police had informed her families best that men are in federal guardianship.
The killings came monthly after Yampi Mendez Arocho, a 19-year-old transgender people, got slain in Moca, P.R., based on the Human liberties Campaign.
In March, Alexa Negron Luciano, a popular figure on Puerto Rico social media who was simply transgender and homeless, had been recorded to death after a McDonald’s client reported that Ms. Negron got spied on the inside the women’s space.
Ms. Negron’s final times — presented for the headlights of an automobile amid a cackle of fun — had been uploaded on social media marketing, a fact that activists said underscored the impunity homophobic assailants feeling when committing such criminal activities.
