Eight suspects have been charged in connection with a series of brutal, anti-gay hate crimes in what was described by a city official as the "most vicious anti-gay crime in the city's history".
The suspects were identified in media reports as Bryan Almonte, 17, Steven Carabello, 17, Brian Cepeda, 17, Nelson Falu, 17, Idelfonso Mendez, 23, Dennis Piters, 17, David Rivera, 21, and Elmer Confresi, 23. Charges against them include harassment, criminal possession of a weapon, unlawful imprisonment, assault, robbery and sexual abuse as hate crimes. Police have said the teenagers are being charged as adults. A ninth suspect, previously identified as 22-year-old Ruddy Vargas-Perez, remains at large.
Police say the nine members of the gang known as Latin King Goonies held three victims against their will last week – beat them in a vacant apartment and sodomised two of them. A fourth victim was beaten and robbed in connection with the attacks, New York City Police Commissioner Ray Kelly has said.
According to reports, the gang had heard a rumour one of their teenage recruits was gay and then found the teen, stripped him, beat him and sodomised him with a plunger handle until he confessed to having had sex with an older man, police say.
The New York Times described the attack in a report Lured Into a Trap, Then Tortured for Being Gay:
"The attackers forced the man to strip to his underwear and tied him to a chair, the police said. One of the teenage victims was still there, and the “Goonies” ordered him to attack the man. The teenager hit him in the face and burned him with a cigarette on his nipple and penis as the others jeered and shouted gay slurs, the police said. Then the attackers whipped the man with a chain and sodomized him with a small baseball bat.
"The beatings and robberies went on for hours. They were followed by a remarkably thorough attempt to sanitize the house — including pouring bleach down drains, the police said, as little by little word of the attacks trickled to the police. A crucial clue to the attackers was provided by someone who slipped a note to a police officer outside the crime scene, at 1910 Osborne Place in Morris Heights, near Bronx Community College."
Before setting upon their 30-year-old victim, at about 3.30am last Sunday, the group grabbed the 17-year-old and took him to the house where they tortured and abused him.
The Times reported: "He was beaten, made to strip naked, slashed with a box cutter, hit on the head with a can of beer and sodomized with the wooden handle of a plunger, the police said. And he was interrogated about the 30-year-old and asked if they had had sex.
"The teenager said that they had. The gang members set him loose, warning him to keep quiet or they would hurt his friends and family. The teenager walked into a nearby hospital and said he had been jumped by strangers on the street and robbed."
At 8.30pm the same day, the group members grabbed a second 17-year-old, beating and likewise interrogating him about his contact with the 30-year-old.
"He, too, said he had had sex with the man. They took his jewelry and held him while the 30-year-old arrived for what he thought was a party, his arms filled with 10 tall cans of Four Loko, a caffeine-infused malt liquor. He had cleaned out a store of its entire stock," the Times reported.
"He was immediately set upon and tied up. Then the assailants ordered the second teenager to attack the 30-year-old, and they joined in the beating. The beating lasted hours, the police said. The attackers forced the man to drink all 10 cans of liquor — each about twice the size of a can of beer, with a higher alcohol content, 10 percent to 12 percent, according to Four Loko’s Web site."
City officials including Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg have denounced the crimes saying: “When you hear the details of what occurred, torture really is the only word that comes to mind. I was sickened by the brutal nature of these crimes and saddened at the anti-gay bias that contributed to them,” Bloomberg said. “Hate crimes such as these strike fear into all of us.”
Christine C. Quinn, the City Council speaker, who is gay, added: “These crimes are not jokes. They are not games. They are things that eat away at the fabric of our city.”
Executive Director of the NYC Anti-Violence Project, Sharon Stapel was quoted by the Associated Press as saying: “We have to stop thinking that it’s OK to bully LGBT people or make fun of LGBT people. What we see now is the link between casual sort of comments and the real and horrific violence that results because those comments contribute to an entire culture of violence,” she said.
CNN reports that the brutal attacks are the latest in a string of some 45 alleged hate crimes in New York this year.
Reader's Comments
Hopefully this story re-reinforces the truth and shows more of the world that we are at a climax of gay bullying and that there needs to be a significant change in what happens as a result of these issues.
I hope this story, and the new "It Gets Better" campaign make a positive change for the LGBT community.
Any detalied information anyone can pass on about them will be welcomed. Names, addresses, specific house number, telephone, friends and family address. go for it.Bastards.
The gay mafia will eventaully get all of them. And rightly so. It is the only way to stopt them wherever they are and whatever country of culture as sick as this.
As long as religion rules everything in this world, there will be more anti-gay to be born.
this world do need apocalypse as reset button like a computer... it's been filled with spams and viruses!
But in the US, these so called straight bashers keep on hitting on gays without due respect for the law at all. They are bashed or even killed for no valid reasons at all....a total of 45 gay bashing cases reported in the New York City (US) this year alone, more than any cases of gays being hanged or punished in Muslim soil.
All the western media hype to portray muslim countries in the negative image, but see what have their societies done to their own gay community ??? You can see so much hypocrisy when a case of a muslim gay being hanged for committing sex with another man in public and western media will portray this news in very negative light. What about the 45 cases of gay bashings and killings happening in New York city alone or the hundreds or thousands of gay bashings in the whole of US ?? How come no one is sensationalising the news ??? And we then start to blame Americans for being uncultured or lack of religious beliefs as the main cause of such blunders??
Looking at this angle, I think Asian societies have more respect for the gay/transvestitite community. Gay bashing seldom happens here, although there are written laws against gay activities, gay relationships, bars and spas fluorish here. As long as we do not seek to expand our boundaries beyond a certain line of restrictions, we are safe.
All of this has nothing to do with East-West, Muslim-Christian, White-Brown-Yellow. It is simply a matter of targeted violence and criminality, and even though it's impossible to stop it completely while there are humans, at least there are people out there who find it unacceptable, and voice it out loud. If you believe that there is more justice and less violence towards gay people in places where they are not even regarded as citizens with basic rights, then clearly you're on a ideological holy crusade and your mind is living on a different planet.
Religion is the most influential school, and is the biggest mistake on earth! It does not bring peace! The only thing that religion brings is to SEPARATE and DIVIDE people into many groups, some create hatred on one another, some create extremists, some create unnecessary pressure for the society... The only thing it provides is to give fake BS good things to us...
Not only in US, almost half of the world are gay discriminated, although they may legalized gay rights... Sometimes i too wishes the apocalypse wipe off all of us, and reset the world to zero again... Again, because religion is the most influential BS, and the biggest mistake!!!
If you ever heard of the science fact about killing one butterfly directly equals to killing ten human beings... Then you should know a religion attendee will only give more powers to any religion to produce more anti-gay people... In other words, more gay people will be abused, if there are more attendee in any religion...
So, if you are gay and you are being abused, dont blame other people... Blame yourself, because you made them powerful to support anti-gay people... It may not happen in your country, but extreme anti-gay people in other countries will indirectly influence your country... So, it will come back to the same situation...
Seriously, it doesn't even concern any part of them or even their lives. Just lead your their life and care about their own business. They can't even take care of their own life and they want to mess up people's life.
How does someone being gay concerns them? Afraid that homosexuals might fall for them? Then in that case, just leave homosexuals alone.
If a person starts with a punch, it's only natural for the other party to hit back.
Hate crime criminals should be punished for that is considered murder.
Lack of education, or none at all, which in turn breeds ignorance, is clearly the issue in the present case. Isn't this what gang "culture" is all about? Animals without moral values and with a penchant for gratuitous violence which hunt in packs because they rightly have such low self-esteem they know they're nothing as individuals.
I would take pity on them if they were not so very despicable.
#33: If you don't feel anger for such inhuman things happening to innocent people, then pardon my honesty - you're aren't quite human in yr heart.
caught between its two sides, the ghetto is hardly fertile ground for gay tolerance or even simple rationality ... but neither is it representative of the USA as a whole... the american news media (which has given extensive coast-to-coast coverage of the gay bashings and gay suicides) and the american public are quite rightly appalled that such crimes have occurred... the wave of pro-gay sympathy is at least one small consolation from these episodes of barbarity
i would contrast this with the guy who was stomped to death for flashing his willy in a public loo in singapore a few years ago... "he got what he deserved" seems to have been the general public reaction... even some gays agreed... sad
America was founded on a principles of morality, excuse me, between me and you in yoru heart, if u were not Gay, u will act like these teens.
Alot of things are being done wrong and we gay will face more problem, to solve it, stop putting a finger in their eyes, they responde with voilence and they are more than Gay.
u seem to suggest that "morality" is limited to sex... so torturing these gay guys is moral but them having sex with each other is immoral?? hmmmmm.... what an, um, interesting value system u have! .... i suspect you were designed for the 17th century, not the 21st.
one little quibble: it is very natural for homosexuals to be homosexuals just as it's very natural for heterosexuals to be heterosexuals... what is unnatural is homosexuals pretending to be heterosexual
Now, putting things into perspective, I suppose you wouldn't be as cool as cucumber if the victims were among your loved ones.
Empathy. It never hurt to have some.
In the case of black, they exsited long ago, they have their own land, it is our fore father that went to bring them to where we were, women have being in exsitance and nature gave them pussy for birth and sex.
But we, we convery anus or anal mearnt for discharging our waste to our own pussy and fuck it.
so see difference, if u are not being self centred what happened in serbai should open your eyes
I think those gang guys should consider the whole gay issue in a different way. First, they surely enjoyed what they did. And if they enjoy sodomizing gay men, they are kinda gay too, even if in a sick and perverted way.
Second, because people of the same sex understand each other better, maybe they should consider being gay as a better way to enhance their manhood. If they like girls so much, why don't they start playing with dolls and wearing their mothers' clothes?
As a man, loving other men i love myself. If i hated the sight of a male body, i would hate my own body, and myself as well. If they can't stand men enjoying each other and their time together, what is a "gang" supposed to be? What is the point for them to be together? If they love being tough and manly and showing off their manhood with violence, they just need to play some wrestling, and some sex all together after!
They want to be real men, they are actually less men than the gays they hate! Cause gays have guts to be what they want to be! And they only try to be what others expect them to be. Losers!
so sad! why they could use such a terrible way to treat other human beings! unbelievable!
On the night before I left NYC for Asia I was mugged and robbed of USD 2000 which was to be pocket money for my trip. So you can all well imagine how I felt getting on a 18 hour flight the next morning after being attacked the night before.
The USA and in my case NYC was a great place at one time to live but those days are gone thanks to the government. They allow the most low class,uneducated bottom feeders of 3rd & 4th world countries into the USA with most of them settling in the ghettos of major cities like NYC,SF,LA and Chicago.
They go on welfare which means the government supports them so they have plenty of time on their hands to think up sick acts like this one.Add to this that probably some of them are gay to begin with and cannot deal with this reality so they take it out on gay men who are out and proud.
The bottom line in all of this is simple and sad.They will get maximum 16-25 years in prison, where they will have gay sex,then come out and continue with these hate crimes. So until America stops allowing these cretins into the country it will continue.
these violent boys deserve to put behind bars forever and be sodomized by our inmate gay brothers with huge cock!!!!
Animals fight over power to survive. We are not animals.
Natural or unnatural, its up to you... If everyone thinks that gay is unnatural, then it will be unnatural ; If everyone thinks that gay is natural, then it will be natural... The force of the society is powerful enough to make things their own way... So, if you want the society to recognize gay, the first thing you have to do is to recognize yourself as gay...
#52
we are animals, we do fight for powers to survive, without power, we will be just like gay people in some countries where gay do not even exist there, because some government have full power over homosexuality...
Gotta lobby the authorities to keep a lid on this hate.
All those comments championing love and understanding as the foundation for a better world bathed in sunshine and rainbows are quite touching. And I have to say that reading yours, all sarcasm put aside, was refreshing and thought-provoking.
However, it dawned on me that either I'm a hopeless cynic, or this is really not Care Bear Wonderland. I've never expressed my wish for an equally violent retribution against these criminals, though according to some who seem more familiar with the US carceral system, this is very likely to happen.
And if it does happen, I certainly won't lose any sleep over it.
All things said, perhaps I'll get wiser in time.
I'm truly sorry to hear what trauma you went through, and glad you were left unharmed.Keep the comments coming!
Prends soin de toi.
#60: Merci pour votre opinion...mais pour moi, les victimes sont peuple aussi. It's nice & noble of you to show such consideration...and almost Christ-like forgiveness of spirit...toward people who show violence to you, as you recounted- and I admire you for that. Bt please, for once, try stepping out of your ivory tower...and empathize from the victims' families & friends...their loved ones are ABUSED. In the most astroundingly cruel manner.
I'm sorry to say this, but in this context, yr preaching does sound more than a tad patronising.
Discrimination NEVER needs a justification. It's an age old vice passed down since Adam met Steve in the garden of PRIDE. GLBT-Unite and stay Vigilant. The Devil is not 666 feet under. He's been all around us in your face. He's someone you may/may not know. He's your family, your neighbor, your co-workers, your so called church and so called fellow brothers & sisters. Nothing would please them more than SAVING your gay soul and they will never stop trying until they succeed; cos their own souls are already damned for eternity.
Remember damnit, we too have a WIDE stance on this God given earth for all creations. :)
I agree with two persons here:
No. 70:
"really.. enough IS enough- it's time we stand up and fight back and show them we are not going to put up with shit like this. This enrages me."
and
No. 60: "I never believed in violence, and responding to violence by more violence doesn't make us any better than the people we criticise and whose actions we condemn. I'm as disgusted by their actions as you are. And the first instinct would be to go "yeah, let them rot in prison", or "yeah, let them experience what they inflicted on their victims". I know..."
Also I strongly disagree with some others here who use this horrible situation for making nasty comments about immigrants and betraying a similar racial or class prejudice. If we do this, then we become like our enemies.
I believe that God (or another earth based spiritual system) will make a judgement on these criminals and punish them and they will suffer for a million thousand centuries.
I believe, that we should be peaceful and have peaceful protests and civil disobediance to fight for our equal rights along with the equal rights of others.
I believe too, that being passive invites more violence against us and is a sign of weakness. I was in the Stonewall Riots in NYC and in anti war protests in the US. Maybe we will not change the world by our protests but the world will change us surely.
Peace, Freedom, Tolerance and Justice, which means that these criminals will suffer the full penalty of the law. Fight for your rights!
SOME SWEET BOY PUSSY for the inmates in prison ...
They may not have some religious figure preaching to them directly about hate, but they grew up in a community surrounded by that hate. The influence is there, whether or not they recognise it consciously or not.
After all, we all like a "hit" and a "bang" now and then....LOL!!
drdlh (no.78) is quite correct. So far - this would never ever happen in lovely Malaysia or indeed Asia!
Anyway i just read through some articles regarding the dead violinist in our local paper and believe me....im just disgusted that the main focus was not on sexuality or cyber bullying but more on privacy issues...god grow up people...even one guy mention that just suck it up when things happen. Just grow a fucking brain stem for once and think through what these teens had to suffer before someone had to realize its more than an issue. I doubt it would make much of a difference if a gay local teen commit suicide because we all know how media just twist it to appear as a normal suicide.
I will not gain many friends saying this, but I find it's easy to stay behind one's desk and get outraged at what is going in another country or on TV. Because after that, life goes on for us... as normal, as usual. So who's in an ivory tower?
obviously all those gay pride marches in NYC over the years don't acheive much, better funded education especially targetted in NYCies low income tribal areas would help more, it's sad as these kind of random attacks further entrench fear and victimhood amongst those targeted minorities they are aimed at also sad is the kind of hatred the perpetrators of these crimes hold in their minds, there is always solutions for problems best NYC Gay groups, legislators & educators find them
I don't mean fight in a terrorism/violence sense either. I mean social subversion - constant subtle and not so subtle reminders of the existence of non-heterosexuals, and the inequalities we put up with, despite our continual contributions to society.
I think there is a level of this happening in Singapore already. Many local theatrical productions make mention of gay-related issues including the well-deserved pisstakes on topical issues like our beloved Feminist Mentor.
The recent national day campaign "Be Loud Be Proud" is an absolute tongue-in-coup!!!
Over public displays like pride marches are one thing. Perhaps the current generation needs to try working within the systems.
Hate speeches get mysteriously twisted. Hate-mongering churches get their pamphlets printed with a hidden naughty error, neo-con political broadcasts get interrupted by technical faults...
However I believe that the culprits would get their well deserved punishment from the law. :D
Why couldn't people understand that gays are also humans and should not be discriminated? Why humans are unable to put aside their differences and live together. Is this world too small to hold all different kinds of people? Or is it people's fear of whats different from them causing them to do such horrific acts?
This does not only applies to gays. There are many cases of toture due to different races or different religion since the past. The world is getting more civilised and advanced, but when will the people catch up with the world. :(
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