{"id":23510,"date":"2017-03-03T04:39:54","date_gmt":"2017-03-03T04:39:54","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.biphoo.com\/bipnews\/?p=23510"},"modified":"2017-03-03T04:39:54","modified_gmt":"2017-03-03T04:39:54","slug":"ms-13-gang-members-arrested-in-girls-killings-on-long-island-police-say","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.biphoo.com\/bipnews\/news\/ms-13-gang-members-arrested-in-girls-killings-on-long-island-police-say.html","title":{"rendered":"MS-13 Gang Members Arrested in Girls\u00a0Killings on Long Island"},"content":{"rendered":"

\n\tMS-13 Gang Members Arrested in Girls Killings on Long Island, Police Say<\/span><\/strong><\/span>
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\n\tMS-13 Gang Members Arrested in Girls Killings on Long Island:- <\/strong>The four young men sat nonchalantly in a federal courthouse here on Thursday afternoon, barely raising their eyebrows when a judge said they could face the death penalty for their roles in the killings of two teenage girls in September.<\/span><\/span>\n<\/p>\n

\n\tInstead, one of the four, Jairo Saenz, a leader of the local clique of a transnational gang with Salvadoran roots, grinned, swiveled in his chair and hardly looked at the crying relatives from El Salvador in the back of the courtroom.<\/span><\/span>\n<\/p>\n

\n\tMr. Saenz, 19, was one of five people arrested Thursday morning in Suffolk County on Long Island as part of a federal sweep that targeted 13 adult members of the gang, MS-13. An additional three people were charged as juveniles, and their records were sealed. As of Thursday evening, 14 people were in custody, with two yet to be arrested.<\/span><\/span>\n<\/p>\n

\n\tIn a midday news conference at the federal courthouse here, Robert L. Capers, the United States attorney for the Eastern District of New York, announced the indictments and the arrests made by the Federal Bureau of Investigation’s Long Island gang task force.<\/span><\/span>\n<\/p>\n

\n\t“For far too long on Long Island, MS-13 has been meting out its own version of the death penalty,” Mr. Capers said.<\/span><\/span>\n<\/p>\n

\n\tIn the back of the courtroom — on the opposite side from the gang members’ families — sat Evelyn Rodriguez, the mother of Kayla Cuevas, 16, who, along with Kayla’s friend Nisa Mickens, 15, the government said was killed by the men. Ms. Rodriguez sat stoically.<\/span><\/span>\n<\/p>\n

\n\t“I’m really overwhelmed,” she said, emerging from the courtroom.<\/span><\/span>\n<\/p>\n

\n\tThe trial of the 13 adult gang members is scheduled for April 10.<\/span><\/span>\n<\/p>\n

\n\tMr. Capers said that 10 of the 13 adult gang members were undocumented immigrants, and that three of the gang members who were accused of direct involvement in the killings of Kayla and Nisa in Brentwood, N.Y., on Sept. 13, were undocumented immigrants. He said Mr. Saenz’s older brother, Alexi, 22, who also was charged in the killings, was a legal permanent resident.<\/span><\/span>\n<\/p>\n

\n\tEarlier, four gang members were arrested in connection with the killing of José Peña-Hernandez, 18, whose remains were found in the woods near a hospital in October. They are also undocumented immigrants.<\/span><\/span>\n<\/p>\n

\n\tThe federal charges include racketeering, seven murders, attempted murders, obstruction of justice, arson and conspiracy. Since the killings, the Suffolk County Police Department has arrested more than 125 MS-13 members, officials have said. The arrests on Thursday are the only ones in conjunction with federal authorities.<\/span><\/span>\n<\/p>\n

\n\t“We have promised to eradicate MS-13 from our streets, and we remain committed to finishing the job,” Suffolk County Police Commissioner Timothy Sini said.<\/span><\/span>\n<\/p>\n

\n\t“Although we are keenly aware that nothing will ever undo the heartbreaking loss of Nisa and Kayla, we can take solace in the fact that their savage murderers will be held accountable,” he said.<\/span><\/span>\n<\/p>\n

\n\tEleven gang killings in Suffolk County last year were attributed to MS-13, and the cases became a referendum on illegal immigration, because a majority of the members had come to the United States illegally.<\/span><\/span>\n<\/p>\n

\n\tBut Mr. Sini said that while the police worked with the F.B.I., they also depended on the cooperation of all community members. He said that he would not authorize his officers to become immigration agents as President Trump had directed in an executive order on immigration enforcement.<\/span><\/span>\n<\/p>\n

\n\t“Any law enforcement official worth their salt wants a community to feel comfortable providing law enforcement information about specific crimes and also about public safety issues in their community,” Mr. Sini said after the news conference, “and without the cooperation of the community, the mission is compromised.”<\/span><\/span>\n<\/p>\n

\n\tAt the news conference, Mr. Capers gave the first extended description of the killings on the night of Sept. 13. He said that Kayla had been feuding with gang members at school and via social media. Nisa “was at the wrong place at the wrong time, with her childhood friend,” he said.<\/span><\/span>\n<\/p>\n

\n\tAbout 8:30 p.m., the two girls were walking on the street, having just left Kayla’s home, as Selvin Chavez and Enrique Portillo, both 19, and two juvenile gang members were cruising in a car, looking for rival gang members to assault or kill, Mr. Capers said.<\/span><\/span>\n<\/p>\n

\n\tThe MS-13 members spotted the girls and placed a call to the Saenz brothers: Jairo Saenz’s gang name was Funny, and Alexi Saenz’s was Blasty. The brothers gave the order to kill the girls, and their henchmen wasted no time. They first came upon Nisa and bludgeoned her using baseball bats and machetes. She suffered such blunt-force trauma to her face and body, Mr. Capers said, that she was unrecognizable.<\/span><\/span>\n<\/p>\n

\n\tKayla, he said, “ran for her life.” A crafty left-handed basketball player, she made it into the woods next to a house off a cul-de-sac, but the gang members caught her, swiftly ending her life. They drove off, leaving the bodies.<\/span><\/span>\n<\/p>\n

\n\t“This was the worst I had ever seen,” Mr. Sini said of the crime scene.<\/span><\/span>\n<\/p>\n

\n\tMr. Capers said that Mr. Peña-Hernandez was a member of the <\/span><\/span>gang,<\/span><\/span> and that fellow members suspected that he was a police informant and killed him. His bones were found a month after the girls were killed.<\/span><\/span>\n<\/p>\n

\n\tThe transnational gang has taken hold on Long Island in the last 10 years; 2016 was an especially violent year. But as a result of increased patrols and a crackdown on gang members, Mr. Sini said violent crime in Suffolk County had dropped by 45 percent.<\/span><\/span>\n<\/p>\n

\n\tMs. Rodriguez said her husband called her at work, telling her that the police had come to the house to tell them Kayla’s and Nisa’s killers had been caught. She sobbed and went immediately to the chapel in her workplace.<\/span><\/span>\n<\/p>\n

\n\t“Today is a celebration,” she said, expressing her gratitude to law enforcement. “I know Kayla is up in heaven saying, ‘Mom, you did it.’”<\/span><\/span>\n<\/p>\n

\n\tSource:- https:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/2017\/03\/02\/nyregion\/ms-13-gang-killings-long-island.html<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

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