NYC officials visit site of anti-gay gang tortureAP
The abandoned home that served as a clubhouse, and allegedly a torture chamber, for a street gang accused of trapping and brutalizing three gay men is AP – The abandoned home that served as a clubhouse, and allegedly a torture chamber, for a street gang accused …
By VERENA DOBNIK and DAVID B. CARUSO, Associated Press Writers Verena Dobnik And David B. Caruso, Associated Press Writers – Sat Oct 9, 7:27 pm ET
NEW YORK – The abandoned home that served as a clubhouse — and allegedly a torture chamber — for a street gang accused of trapping and brutalizing three gay men sits in a neighborhood where homosexuality is both common and tolerated, residents said.
Gay men and women lived openly, and while neighbors were disturbed by some past violent behavior by the group of young men alleged to have been involved in the attacks, some said they hadn't previously targeted homosexuals.
"I was friends with all of them," said Natty Martinez, a gay 16-year-old who lives in the Bronx neighborhood.
"They were chill. There was no beef," she said. "I had no idea they had no heart."
New York City leaders continued to express outrage Saturday over the attacks, which police say took place over several hours on two nights. Seven suspects were arrested on Thursday and Friday and an eighth turned himself in on Saturday. One more were still at large.
Police Commissioner Raymond Kelly told reporters at a press conference on Saturday that several of the suspects had made statements implicating themselves in the crime.
Asked if the men had expressed any remorse for what they had done, Kelly said "I wouldn't call it remorse."
Kelly also said that a lawyer representing the ninth suspect had arranged for his client to turn himself in, but he never showed. Kelly said he was hopeful he would do so, but in the meantime he said officers continue to hunt for him.
New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg said Saturday that he was "sickened" by the attacks. He added that the quick arrests should be a message that people who commit hate crimes in New York City "will go to jail for a very long time."
Bloomberg also urged parents and religious clerics to take the opportunity to talk with their children about the need for tolerance.
The suspects who were arrested Thursday and Friday were identified as Ildefonzo Mendez, 23; David Rivera, 21; four 17-year-olds, Steven Caraballo, Denis Peitars, Nelson Falu and Bryan Almonte; and Brian Cepeda, 16. All face charges including robbery, assault and unlawful imprisonment as hate crimes; Mendez, Rivera and Falu were additionally charged with committing a criminal sex act.
The eighth suspect, Elmer Confresi, 23, of the Bronx, turned himself in on Saturday.
A reporter knocked on Rivera's door in the Bronx Saturday and no one answered. Telephone numbers could not be found for the other suspects, and it wasn't immediately clear if the suspects had attorneys.
Family members of some of the suspects told the The New York Times they were shocked by the arrests.
Bryan Almonte's stepmother, Carmen, told the newspaper that the teen was hospitalized Friday night after going into diabetic shock during his arrest. She said his father died three months ago.
"Bryan is not a bad kid," she told the newspaper. "If he was there, he didn't do anything."
Cepeda, who moved from Santo Domingo three years ago to join his mother, Ada, was interested in becoming a police officer, she said.
"He's not rude; he's quite intelligent," Ada Cepeda told the Times. "I'm a realist. It's not that my son is a saint. But I doubt he would do that."
Police said the nine members of a gang that called itself the Latin King Goonies went berserk after hearing a rumor that one of their new recruits, a 17-year-old, was gay.
Investigators say the teen was stripped, beaten and sodomized with a plunger handle until he confessed to having had sex with a 30-year-old man who lives a few blocks away.
Then, the group grabbed a second teen they suspected was gay and tortured him, too. Finally, they invited the 30-year-old to the house, telling him they were having a party. When he arrived, they burned, beat and tortured him for hours. The attack included sodomizing him with a miniature baseball bat, police said.
Five City Council members and other elected officials visited the block Saturday and stood outside the empty brick townhouse where the attacks had taken place.
City Council Speaker Christine Quinn, who is gay, passed out leaflets imploring residents to turn in the two suspects still being sought. She and her colleagues were joined by area ministers, civic leaders and residents, who marched in solidarity with the victims.
"People were very, very clear that they wanted it to be known that the acts of these individulas do not represent their neighborhood," said Quinn. "They were as stunned as anyone that something so violent, so premeditated ... could happen here."
The first of the attacks happened in the early morning hours of Oct. 3. The next two began the next night, and lasted into the early hours of Oct. 4th.
Sitting on the steps of the home where the attacks took place Saturday, Martinez and three teenage friends said the accused men had frequently partied in an empty apartment on the block.
The girls said the young men, who ranged in age from 16 to 23, were "the nicest ever." Some even went to church, they said. But they added that when the group drank heavily, they did bad things and sometimes beat up people.
Word of the assaults apparently reached residents long before police had pieced together what happened. Jaymarie Mendez, 16, said she heard about the attack, "the next day," but said that, like other young people in the area, "We don't talk to cops. We don't like them."
The victims, authorities said, didn't call the police either.
Residents on the block said they were shocked by the violence.
"How can people do something like that?" asked Keith Handsford, 35, an air conditioning repairman who lives next to the building where the assaults took place.
He said he had two teenage nieces who were gay, and lived in the neighborhood, who have had no problems with serious harassment.
A spokesman for the Bronx district attorney said the seven suspects in custody were awaiting a possible arraignment Saturday on charges that would include abduction and sodomy as a hate crime.
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20101009/ap_on_re_us/us_gang_hate_crime
