Law enforcement stated they’d labeled the deaths as a detest criminal activity following the remains of two females are found in a defectively burned vehicles last week.
A week after the systems of two transgender women were within a severely burned car in Puerto Rico, the police stated Thursday they got arrested two boys associated with the killings along with turned all of them over to the F.B.I.
The people, Juan Carlos Pagan Bonilla, 21, and Sean Diaz de Leon, 19, were used into guardianship on Wednesday but I have not come recharged, per Capt. Teddy Morales, the principle of violent investigations the authorities in Humacao, on Puerto Rico’s eastern shore, where in fact the women’s stays were found on April 22.
The guy said the F.B.I. got taken over the fact and had been investigating Mr. Pagan Bonilla and Mr. Diaz de Leon for feasible civil-rights violations.
“We become classifying it a detest crime since they were interacting because of the victims, and once they revealed these were transgender women, they made a decision to kill them,” master Morales stated on Thursday.
The authorities mentioned they were looking 
forward to autopsy leads to determine how the ladies was murdered. Activists has determined the women as Layla Pelaez, 21, and Serena Angelique Velazquez, 32, two buddies who lived in nyc. Their unique stays are discovered after someone known as 911 to document a burned vehicle under a bridge on a desolate highway in Humacao, just before 5 a.m. on April 22, master Morales stated.
Mr. Pagan Bonilla and Mr. Diaz de Leon was basically socializing with Ms. Velazquez and Ms. Pelaez from the evening before they were killed and were tape-recorded on a single of this women’s social media records, head Morales stated.
The guy said law enforcement had in addition tied up Mr. Pagan Bonilla and Mr. Diaz de Leon for the killings through security camera video footage and “scientific facts,” that he dropped to detail. Mr. Pagan Bonilla admitted to taking part in the killings, and Mr. Diaz de Leon switched themselves in, he mentioned.
Limary Cruz-Rubio, a spokeswoman for your F.B.I.’s San Juan area office, dropped to discuss the arrests but said the bureau consistently collaborates with neighborhood, state and national companies.
“The Bureau is and will continually be thinking about violent run which could drop within federal jurisdiction,” she stated. “However, all of our coverage try we do not verify or deny the existence of investigations, to guard the stability of every feasible investigative energy.”
Mr. Pagan Bonilla and Mr. Diaz de Leon cannot instantly getting attained for touch upon Thursday evening, and it was not instantly obvious when they had solicitors.
In the event the the male is recharged, it might represent a flipping part of the management of crimes against L.G.B.T.Q. people in Puerto Rico, which includes a disturbing reputation of physical violence against gay and transgender people, activists stated.
Ms. Velazquez and Ms. Pelaez had been the 3rd and next transgender men and women slain in Puerto Rico within the last few 8 weeks, activists mentioned. These were furthermore considered the seventh and eighth transgender or gender-nonconforming people to have been slain in the United States this current year, in accordance with the individual liberties venture.
Previously 15 period, 10 L.G.B.T.Q. individuals have already been murdered in Puerto Rico, relating to Pedro Julio Serrano, a gay liberties activist. Just about three of deaths remain unresolved, he said.
“These arrests include one step when you look at the proper movement, however these murders need to be prosecuted as detest criminal activities,” Mr. Serrano said. “We urge the government to complete the research into the various other seven murders of L.G.B.T.Q. anyone regarding isle and provide justice regarding of them.”
Ms. Velazquez lived-in Queens and Ms. Pelaez in the Bronx. Both have lately journeyed to Puerto Rico, and so they comprise likely to travel back again to nyc later this thirty days, relating to family members and activists.
Luz Melendez, 29, Ms. Pelaez’s relative, said Mr. Pagan Bonilla and Mr. Diaz de Leon are detained after a local radio station published photographs of them on Facebook and other people begun to phone the station to understand them.
“We tend to be very appreciative for the services that the authorities together with community added locate whom did this,” she stated on Thursday.
She mentioned the images originated two video that Ms. Pelaez have submitted on the Snapchat and Facebook account, which revealed the girl and Ms. Velazquez socializing with Mr. Pagan Bonilla and Mr. Diaz de Leon.
“I watched the video, also it seemed like these people were spending some time together as family,” she mentioned. “It seemed regular. There is tunes playing for the back ground. Folks felt good.”
She mentioned law enforcement have informed her group only your people happened to be in national guardianship.
The killings arrived monthly after Yampi Mendez Arocho, a 19-year-old transgender people, ended up being slain in Moca, P.R., according to research by the person liberties Campaign.
In February, Alexa Negron Luciano, a well-known figure on Puerto Rico social media who was simply transgender and homeless, is shot to death after a McDonald’s client complained that Ms. Negron have spied on her behalf during the women’s place.
Ms. Negron’s last times — framed during the headlights of a vehicle amid a cackle of fun — had been posted on social media, a fact that activists stated underscored the impunity homophobic assailants believe when committing this type of crimes.
