The recent eruption of gang violence on Long Island — highlighted by the discovery of the mutilated bodies of four young men in a public park — fits what experts and sources say is a new and more deadly profile of MS-13.

Long Island

Crime

Laura Figueroa Hernandez

Nassau District Attorney Madeline Singas said Sunday that she would support deporting immigrants convicted of gang violence, but warned that law enforcement officials must be “careful” not to scare off possible victims or witnesses from cooperating with authorities for fear of deportation.
Singas, in a radio interview on “The Cats Roundtable” on 970 AM, lauded last month’s indictment of 41 alleged MS-13 gang members in Nassau County that stemmed from a four-year probe. It resulted in an 85-count indictment against the suspected perpetrators of dozens of shootings, stabbings and other violent acts.
“For the people who are committing violent crimes against innocent members of our community, deportation is certainly something that we would support,” Singas said, responding to a question by host John Catsimatidis. “We just have to be careful. Because we don’t want the message to be that if you’re a victim of these crimes, and you’re illegal, or a witness, you don’t come forward to law enforcement, because ultimately that makes us all less safe.”
In June, Singas and Nassau County police officials announced that a grand jury had indicted 41 alleged MS-13 members in connection with 32 violent acts since early 2013 that included eight attempted murders, along with other shootings and slashings. The alleged gang members range in age from 15 to 30. Several in the group came to the United States as unaccompanied minors.
Singas called the indictment “a significant blow to MS-13 operations here in Nassau County,” and described the gang, which has a reputation for using machetes in its attacks, as “ruthless.”
“They use machetes as their weapon of choice, so you can imagine what those scenes look like when they use those machetes, they’re just very ruthless,” Singas said.
Singas said Nassau authorities are “doing everything we can, whether it’s partnering with our neighbors in Suffolk County or partnering with the federal authorities,” to hold gang members “accountable” for their crimes.

Nassau

LISING0731

Singas backs deportation of immigrants in gang convictions

Singas backs deportation in gang convictions

IMG2SHP_WEB

Families of MS-13 victims greeted President Donald Trump’s Long Island visit Friday afternoon with a mix of hope and heartache.
Trump’s condemnation of the murderous transnational gang and his vow to eradicate it from communities across the United States resonated deeply with those mourning the loss of loved ones.
Evelyn Rodriguez of Brentwood, whose teenage daughter was brutally slain last September by MS-13 members, said she and her husband, Freddy Cuevas, attended the speech at the invitation of the White House.
The parents were touched that Trump — speaking at Suffolk Community College in Brentwood — mentioned 16-year-old Kayla Cuevas and her close friend Nisa Mickens, 15, saying the gang “butchered those little girls.”
“I appreciate that . . . he’s acknowledging the families, that we did lose a loved one, and he’s going to do something about it,” said Rodriguez, 49.
“What he was saying was what we’ve been asking for — more resources, for him to support our Suffolk PD,” the mother said. “We need change here in our community.”
Rodriguez said she became emotional as Trump described in graphic language the killing methods of the gang, including slashing them with machetes.
“It was tough, because I know what happened to my daughter and to Nisa,” Rodriguez said. “So it hit right back home. But people have to realize: These individuals, this is how they strike. It’s ruthless. It’s brutal.”
In his speech, Trump talked of “liberating” Long Island communities like Brentwood and Central Islip, promising to hunt down, jail and deport gang members.
That promise resonated strongly with Freddy Cuevas, who has become an outspoken advocate for victims of gang violence.
“Whatever it takes to just annihilate them and get them all out,” he said. “‘Liberate’ in the sense we need to capture back our community.”
Robert Mickens, still mourning his daughter, also expressed support for the president and felt protesters upset about Trump’s stances on immigration and health care missed the point.
To Mickens, it’s not about politics, it was about stopping MS-13 and saving lives.
“This is not just a small gang out there that the police can get rid of in one shot,” the Brentwood father said. “They are across the whole United States. And it’s going to be an ongoing problem if he doesn’t step up and do what he says he’s going to do.”
Since January 2016, 17 slayings have been attributed to MS-13 in Suffolk County alone, authorities said. Four of those killings happened in April when police say two women lured the victims to a park in Central Islip, where waiting gang members beat them with bats and hacked them with machetes. 
“They are savages,” said Francis Villalobos, 41, of Pompano Beach, Florida, whose son Jefferson, 20, was among the victims. “They don’t have hearts. They’re just death machines.”
Villalobos was heartened by Trump’s visit, as was Marcelo Llivicura of Patchogue, whose son Justin, 16, was also killed in the attack. 
Llivicura said he spends his days missing his son and fearing that his daughters could one day suffer the same fate.
The answer, he says, is stiffer penalties. 
“I hope they get tough with the laws against these gangs,” he said, echoing another promise by Trump. “These criminals, they are running around taking innocent lives from people who don’t cause any problems. It’s not just good for us, it’s good for everyone.”

LIFAMI0729

For families of MS-13 victims,  Trump’s LI visit offers hope

Trump’s visit gives families of MS-13 victims  hope

LIFAMI0729_WEB

David M. Schwartz

President Donald Trump came to the doorstep of communities hard-hit by gang violence Friday, describing some Long Island neighborhoods as “blood-stained killing fields” that are “under siege.” 
Speaking at Suffolk Community College in Brentwood, Trump said he will ask Congress to augment the 6,000 immigration and customs enforcement officers currently in place by funding 10,000 more agents. He also said he will seek to add hundreds of immigration judges, and crack down on “sanctuary cities” that don’t enforce federal immigration laws. 
Addressing gang members, Trump vowed: “We will find you, we will arrest you, we will jail you and we will deport you.” 
Standing in front of uniformed law enforcement officers in dress blues, Trump said he supported the police — and also suggested that officers treat suspects rougher: 
“Like when you guys put somebody in the car, and you’re protecting their head — the way you put the hand over — like don’t hit their head, and they’ve just killed somebody, don’t hit their head? I said, ‘You can take the hand away, okay.’” 
The Suffolk County Police Department released a statement later in the evening that said, “As a department, we do not and will not tolerate roughing up of prisoners.” Suffolk’s former top uniformed officer, James Burke, is serving a federal prison sentence for beating a suspect and orchestrating a cover up. 
Law enforcement has attributed 17 Long Island slayings since January 2016 to MS-13. That includes the murder of four young men lured to a Central Islip park and the murder of two teenage friends walking down the street. 
Trump, who grew up in Queens, said he was surprised by the gang violence on Long Island. 
“I grew up on Long Island,” he said. “I didn’t know about this. . . . I never thought I’d be up here talking about liberating the towns of Long Island, where I grew up.” 
Trump shook hands with officers as he took the stage and was greeted with chants of “USA! USA!” from the crowd of uniformed officers and Republican elected officials. 
Trump told police officers in attendance, “We have your backs 100 percent, not like in the old days.” Police cheered the remark. 
“I am the big, big admirer, and believer, in law enforcement, from day one,” he said in his 37-minute speech. “We are going to destroy the vile criminal cartel, MS-13, and many other criminal gangs.” 
Rep. Peter King (R-Seaford) introduced Trump, calling the president a “great advocate” for law enforcement. “President Trump knows that blue lives do matter,” he said. “MS-13 is going to be destroyed . . . ” 
Some community members and immigration advocates said the president exaggerated the dangers in the community to justify an immigration crackdown. 
“I drove through Brentwood this morning and people were jogging, children were playing in the street. It’s complete hyperbole and misreprents the community,” said Walter Barrientos, Long Island organizing director for immigration group Make the Road New York. 
Assemb. Phil Ramos (D-Brentwood) said Suffolk County police and the FBI have worked diligently to address the gang murders. “The community is going through a very difficult time, but President Trump is using these tragedies as a way to inflame anti-immigrant feelings, purely for political gains,” he said. 
Robert Zimmerman, a Democratic National Committeeman from Great Neck, said Trump used the police as a political tool. 
“We all recognize the savagery and the evil of MS-13, but when the president referred to Long Island as a killing field, that was an affront to every Suffolk and Nassau police officer,” he said. 
Others praised the speech. Evelyn Rodriguez, the mother of Kayla Cuevas, one of the girls murdered by MS-13, was invited to attend the speech by Rep. Peter King’s office. 
“What he was saying was what we’ve been asking for — more resources, for him to support our Suffolk PD,” she said in an interview after the president’s speech. “We need change here in our community.” 
Fuad Faruque, 21 of Brentwood and vice-chair of the Stony Brook College Republicans, said he lived in the community all his life. “People do not feel safe at night walking their streets. Businesses are ashamed to say they’re based there. I don’t think it’s hyperbole,” he said. 
The president briefly veered onto other topics, touting what he said was a stronger economy and decrying the failure of the effort to repeal Obamacare. 
“You can’t have everything, boy oh boy,” he said, adding that he would let the health care system “implode.” 
Returning to the topic of immigration, Trump also said, “We will build the wall,” saying it would help prevent illegal immigration from Mexico and obstruct the drug trade. “The wall is vital as a tool for ending the humanitarian disaster.” 
Trump blamed former President Barack Obama’s immigration policies for allowing a surge of criminals into the country. 
He said of 150,000 unaccompanied minors that have entered the United States, 4,000 came to Suffolk — including seven now indicted for murder. 
He also appeared to take a broader swipe at current immigrants. 
“You say, what happened to the old days where people came into this country, they worked and they worked and they worked, and they had families, and they paid taxes, and they did all sorts of things, and their families got stronger, and they were closely knit? We don’t see that.” 
with Nicole Fuller, Mark Morales and Andrew Smith

Suffolk

LITRUM0729

Donald Trump in Brentwood speech vows to eliminate MS-13 gang

Trump talks about ‘liberating’ LI towns from MS-13

Trump in Brentwood speech vows to eliminate MS-13

Newsday

Anthony M. DeStefano

NYPD detectives are teaming up with Long Island cops and federal investigators in an effort to solve the killing of a reputed MS-13 gang member whose decomposed body was found May 22 in a Queens park, according to a high-ranking law enforcement official.
The body of Julio Vasquez, 16, was found in a wooded area of Alley Pond Park, his body in a partly skeletonized state with more than two dozen stab wounds to his torso, police said. 
Investigators believe Vasquez, who had an arrest record for menacing and robbery, had been dead from three to seven days when bird watchers found his body.
Police are looking at multiple suspects, including two MS-13 members who are believed to have stabbed Vasquez, said the official, adding that DNA evidence is playing a role in the investigation.
“There is not enough yet to make probable cause arrests,” the official said.
NYPD detectives are working with investigators from both the Nassau and Suffolk police departments to see if the suspects are tied to MS-13 activity on Long Island, the official said, emphasizing that gang activity isn’t limited by county boundaries.
When Vasquez’s body was discovered, investigators said, he could have been killed somewhere else and then dumped in the park. One clue — a Los Angeles Dodgers baseball cap — was found near the body. The bird watchers found the body about 100 yards east, southeast of the park entrance at Cloverdale Boulevard, police said.
While MS-13 activity on Long Island has gained national attention and led earlier this week to multiple federal indictments, the gang’s presence in New York City has been more restrained. Earlier this year, an NYPD gang expert said the group numbered about 132 members in the city, compared to a total citywide gang population of about 1,000.
It was also in May that federal prosecutors in Brooklyn charged three men, Jose “Flaco” Gonzalez, Kevin “Stomper” Paniague and Francisco Ramos, on charges of attempted murder and assault in aid of racketeering. All three are considered members of MS-13 and were accused of trying to set up a victim for an attack and shooting on a Queens street in October 2016, according to court papers.

NYKILL0721

LI cops, NYPD teaming up to solve suspected gang killing, official says

Official: MS-13 suspected in Queens killing 

IMGHE3C_WEB

Robert E. Kessler

Nine of the dozen or so MS-13 gang members who bludgeoned and hacked four young men to death in a Central Islip park — a brutal crime that brought national attention to Suffolk County’s battle with the gang — are now behind bars, federal officials said Wednesday.
Federal prosecutors also revealed the indictment of five other suspected members of MS-13 in connection with the January shooting inside a Central Islip deli that left a suspected gang rival dead and wounded an innocent woman, who was working as a clerk. Two of those suspects, who are brothers, were also indicted earlier this year in the killing of two teenage Brentwood girls, officials said, and ordered the deli hit.
The new allegations are contained in a superseding indictment, charging three men — Alexis Hernandez, 20, of Central Islip, Santos Leonel Ortiz-Flores, 19, of Central Islip, and Omar Antonio Villalta, 22, of Central Islip and Charlottesville, Virginia — each with one count of racketeering, one count of conspiracy to murder rival gang members, and four counts of murder in connection with the April 11 murders of Justin Llivicura, Michael Lopez, Jorge Tigre and Jefferson Villalobos in a Central Islip park.
Another unnamed adult suspect in those murders is still at-large, according to court papers. Six juvenile suspected gang members have also been charged in the brutal killings, but all federal criminal proceedings against juveniles are sealed, so their identities were not released. Authorities would not discuss the status of the other suspects, but said their investigation continues.
Acting U.S. Attorney Bridget M. Rohde, speaking at the news conference, said MS-13 had suspected that several of the young men were members of a rival gang and wanted to kill them, so they had two female associates lure the four young men, and a fifth young man who was able to escape, to the park.
“There, more than a dozen MS-13 gang members and associates were lying in wait for the victims in a wooded area, armed with machetes, knives and clubs,” Rohde said. “When the female associates arrived at the park, they led the young men to the wooded area, texting the waiting MS-13 gang members and associates.”
Suffolk Police Commissioner Timothy Sini said the arrests and indictments represent “another huge blow to MS-13,” a gang which the commissioner has vowed to defeat. 
The indictment against Hernandez, Santis Ortiz-Flores and Villalta is part of a larger superseding indictment accusing 17 MS-13 members of a series of murders and other crimes, stretching back beyond the killing the two Brentwood High School high students in September 2016 — Kayla Cuevas, 16 and Nisa Mickens, 15. The three suspects in the April quadruple murders in Central Islip were arrested Thursday and have pleaded not guilty, officials said.
In a bail letter, prosecutors said: “[The four victims] were surrounded by more than a dozen MS-13 members, including the defendants, and engulfed in a horrific frenzy of violence as they were brutally bludgeoned, sliced and stabbed to death.”
Officials would not say whether the two females are among the six juveniles charged in the killings. 
The families of the four young men have denied they were gang members. Federal prosecutors declined to answer when asked Wednesday.
More than a half-dozen members of MS-13 were indicted earlier this year in the killings of Cuevas, Mickens and alleged MS-13 member Jose Pena-Hernandez, 18, whose skeletal remains were found in a wooded area near the former Pilgrim Psychiatric Center in the days after the girls’ bodies were discovered.
The indictment unsealed Wednesday also charges Mario Aguilar-Lopez, 18, of Brentwood, Enrique Portillo, 20, of Central Islip, Alexi Saenz, 22, of Brentwood; Jairo Saenz, 20, of Brentwood and Jose Suarez, 23, of Central Islip, in connection with the Jan. 30 murder of Esteban Alvarado-Bonilla, a suspected rival gang member, and the shooting of an innocent bystander at El Campesino Deli in Central Islip. 
In the January deli shooting, the murder victim, Esteban Alvarado-Bonilla, was believed to be a member of a rival gang, prosecutors said.
The Saenz brothers have previously been indicted in the killing of Mickens and Cuevas, and according to Rohde, when Portillo, himself an MS-13 gang member, contacted his superiors “the Saenz brothers directed” Arguilar-Lopez, Suarez and other unnamed MS-13 associates to “go to the deli and murder Alvardo-Bonilla.” Portillo was also indicted in the girls’ killings.
Arguilar-Lopez, who was armed with a gun provided to him by the Saenz brothers, prosecutors said, “fired multiple shots into the victim from behind, killing him.” 
One of the shots went through Alvarado-Bonilla’s head and struck the female clerk, who survived, prosecutors said. 
Prosecutors also announced charges against Jeffrey Amador, 21, of Brentwood, and Ronald Catalan, 26, of Brentwood, in connection with the Oct. 21, 2015, attempted murder of two suspected rival gang members, authorities said.

LIGANG0720

Feds: 9 suspects in custody in quadruple killings in Central Islip

Feds: 17 members of MS-13 charged in crimes

Feds: 17 members of MS-13 indicted in multiple LI killings

One of three immigrant teenagers suspended from Bellport High School over disputed allegations of gang involvement was taken by federal agents looking to remove him from the country, according to his lawyer and mother.
The 16-year-old native of El Salvador had returned Thursday afternoon from his job repairing floors when he was apprehended at his Bellport home. His lawyer, Peter Brill, said an agent involved in the arrest identified himself as Homeland Security staff.
The minor and his mother had spoken to Newsday under condition of anonymity, partly because they feared the MS-13 Salvadoran gang, which they said was why they crossed the border illegally into the United States. He denied an allegation of “throwing” gang signs in school, saying he just made an obscene gesture to another boy during an argument.
The teens contended they were wrongly accused by their school of being in MS-13 for flashing signs or wearing Chicago Bulls insignia associated with the gang’s “devil horns” symbol. They were suspended by the South Country school district, which their lawyer said was partly acting on Suffolk police information. 
A fourth young man and former student, also represented by Brill, was upset that he had landed alongside those three on a purported Suffolk police list of gang members and associates that the lawyer obtained from an undisclosed source.
Brill, who is appealing the suspensions, had expressed concern that tagging students as gang members could lead to their deportations. He said the 16-year-old was taken to a detention facility in Virginia.
“This is exactly what we feared was going to happen: That if these kids were labeled as MS-13 members, this was the method they were going to use to remove then from the community,” Brill said. “These actions certainly reinforce our belief that there are ongoing civil rights violations.”
The school district did not comment on the latest development but law enforcement agencies defended their work.
A task force led by federal Homeland Security Investigations, under U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, vowed to criminally charge or remove known gang members from the U.S. — following brutal assaults linked to MS-13, including the unresolved killings of four young men found in a Central Islip park. Among the slain were Justin Llivicura, 16, and Jorge Tigre, 18, who had attended Bellport High.
An ICE spokeswoman said she couldn’t comment on a case involving a minor due to privacy rules. She said the agency’s investigations team is continuing its “emphasis in combating the proliferation of MS-13 and other transnational criminal gang activity,” adding that their work “uses reliable information gathered through multiple sources.”
Justin Meyers, Suffolk police assistant commissioner, said the department is careful about who it pursues and leaves deportations to the feds. “The notion or idea that we are targeting individuals who are not associated with this gang for deportation,” he said, “is completely unfounded and untrue.”

LISUSP0708

Bellport teen detained by federal agents, faces deportation, lawyer says

Lawyer: Teen taken by feds, faces deportation

LISUSP062017_WEB

Michael O'Keeffe

Brentwood High School’s academic year, which started with bloodshed and violence, ended with a celebration of community, optimism for the future and pride in the accomplishments of the students who graduated Sunday. 
About 1,200 students — the largest graduating class in Brentwood history — received diplomas in a commencement that acknowledged the September slayings of students Nisa Mickens, 15, and Kayla Cuevas, 16, but also cheered the achievements of its graduates. 
Thousands of family members, friends and well-wishers braved an intense sun and warm temperatures to pack into Frank A. Mauro Stadium for the ceremony, many carrying life-size headshots of their students and signs that expressed their pride in Brentwood’s graduates. 
The commencement was a victory for Brentwood’s ethnic diversity and immigrant grit, said Assemb. Phil Ramos (D-Brentwood), a 1974 graduate of the school. 
He told the graduates that the working-class hamlet may not have the resources of more affluent Long Island communities, but it does have residents who know how to adapt. 
“We know how to transform ourselves because we are Brentwood strong,” Ramos said. 
Some new Brentwood graduates will attend college in the fall, including at Harvard, Syracuse, Georgetown, the City University of New York and Stony Brook. Others have enlisted in the military, while some plan to join the workforce.
“I’m so ecstatic,” said Tamara Brampton, 39, whose 18-year-old daughter Tarah Sookim plans to study nursing at the College of New Rochelle. “She loves children and she wants to make a difference in their lives.” 
Reeda Iqbal, the valedictorian of the high school’s Sonderling Center who will study at Harvard, said she will become the first member of her family to attend college. She challenged her fellow students to figure out what they are good at doing, and to use that talent to help other people. 
“What is your superpower?” she asked. “How will you use it to influence the world around you?”
The MS-13 gang, accused of terrorizing Brentwood for years, was allegedly behind the brutal deaths of Mickens and Cuevas as well as the killings of four young men whose bodies were found in a park in neighboring Central Islip in April. Sunday’s ceremony sent a message: You can knock us down, but you can’t keep us down. 
“It was hard to get through all that at first,” graduating senior Matthew Guerrero, 19, said about the violence that rocked this hamlet last fall. “Some people cried in the hallways. But the thing about Brentwood is that you can always count on someone being there for you, students, teachers or administrators.”
Classmate Jessica Morales, 18, who said she plans to study criminal justice at Suffolk County Community College, agreed. “It was a tough time, an emotional roller coaster, but we are a family and we helped each other,” she said. 
Richard Loeschner, the principal of Brentwood High’s Ross Center, acknowledged the gang violence by asking for a moment of silence during the graduation ceremony to honor Mickens, Cuevas and their families. He said the slayings left “a collective hole in our heart.” 
“Give a prayer,” Loeschner added. “Pray for the family and friends who are still impacted, who will always be impacted by their loss.” 
Ramos also acknowledged the violence, saying he has secured money to fund an anti-gang program for the hamlet.
Graduate Victor Colina, 19, said he plans to move to Florida, where he eventually hopes to start his own construction company. But first, it was time to celebrate. 
“I’m going to have a barbecue with my family,” he said. “And spend the rest of the day relaxing.”

Education

LIBREN0625

Brentwood High celebrates future, largest graduating class

Brentwood extols grads, ends year marred by killings

Brentwood honors victims during high school commencement

1,200 graduate from Brentwood High

It bears repeating, over and over again, that one teenager’s run-ins with a violent gang began in the halls of her school.
“Kayla was bullied for two years,” her mother, Evelyn Rodriguez, told a congressional subcommittee hearing on gang violence on Long Island at the federal courthouse in Central Islip last week.
“They get them in school,” she said, referring to recruiting and intimidation efforts by violent MS-13 gang members. In March, six gang members were charged in the beating deaths of Kayla Cuevas, 16, and her friend, Nisa Mickens, 15. The gang had spotted the pair walking together on a street in Brentwood. 
Of all the testimony given before U.S. representatives Peter King (R-Seaford) and Kathleen Rice (D-Garden City), Rodriguez’s easily was the most urgent, compelling and, frankly, frightening.
The early part of the hearing had been devoted to law enforcement officials, including representatives from Nassau and Suffolk police departments, the Suffolk jail, the Federal Bureau of Investigation and Immigration and Customs Enforcement.
Together, the officials pieced together a view of MS-13, and with the bureaucratic precision of agencies ferreting out as much information as possible in a combined effort to solve, and stop, a recent spate of murders and violent attacks by gang members.
What is MS-13 on Long Island?
Most members, officials said, are male, ages 16 to 29, with ties to El Salvador, Honduras or Guatemala. In Suffolk, the largest concentration of MS-13 members lives in Brentwood; the second largest in Central Islip.
Suffolk has 400 gang members, arranged in nine cells called cliques; Nassau has 345 members who have been active in the past five years (along with 367 inactive ones).
Many gang members hold wage-paying jobs — one factor that differentiates MS-13 from other gangs — although MS-13 nonetheless generates income through extortion, prostitution, membership dues and illicit trafficking. The gang’s weapon of choice — which seemed to come as a surprise to Rice — is the machete, which often is used to mutilate and dismember victims during attacks that sometimes are recorded.
Officials agreed that MS-13 considers undocumented minors — or as Angel Melendez of ICE’s Homeland Security Investigations more bluntly put it, “undocumented alien children” — who, as part of a program, were settled with relatives or guardians in Brentwood and Central Islip, as prime candidates for membership.
“What . . . concerns us is the age of the average MS-13 member and associate,” William Sweeney, assistant director in charge of the FBI’s New York field office, testified. “Typically much younger than those connected to other street gangs, MS-13 members and associates often lack direction, taking cues from the gang instead of relying on a productive family structure.” More than one official also noted that MS-13 recruits in schools, often using intimidation and threats.
All of which brings us back to Rodriquez, and to Kayla, who attended the same high school as Nisa in Brentwood.
It is not Rodriguez’s job — nor that of Nisa’s dad, Robert, who also testified — to police a community; or to catch and prosecute gang members. It’s not her job to gather intelligence or coordinate between federal and local policing agencies.
Rodriguez, nonetheless, had one of the most important jobs of all — raising a daughter, which made her just as knowledgeable as the experts in the room. 
“They get them in school,” she testified, looking up from the witness table to where King and Rice sat in the federal courtroom-turned-hearing room. “They target them, they bully them.”
Her soft voice grew strong as she talked about Kayla, and her days in school — and about how school officials and Suffolk police at the local precinct ignored the family’s quest for action. “She had to wear a tough skin every day to go to school,” Rodriguez said. “She had to be a tough girl to survive.”
In the months before she was killed, Kayla was involved in a series of disputes with gang members; a week before, she and several friends had an altercation with members at her Brentwood high school, according to federal prosecutors.
Since Kayla’s death, her mother’s had to be tough, too.
“I never thought I would be doing this,” she said in an interview after the hearing. “But I’m here, and I’m at every school board meeting and I am not going to go away.”

Columnists

Joye Brown

LIJOYE0625

Kayla Cuevas’ mom tells how MS-13 gang recruits at school

Brown: Mom tells how gang recruits at school 

LIJOYE0625_WEB

Three young Latino immigrants say they stand wrongly accused as MS-13 members and were suspended from Bellport High School for wearing banned clothing with Chicago Bulls insignia or throwing hand signs associated with the gang.
Peter Brill, a criminal defense lawyer with offices on Long Island and New York City who is fighting the suspensions, said the disciplinary actions were partly based on misleading information from the Suffolk County Police Department.
The allegations, denied by the South Country school district, come amid widespread concerns over MS-13’s violent acts, including the killing of four young Hispanic men — two of whom attended Bellport High — whose bodies were found in a Central Islip park in April. The suspensions were ordered between mid-April and early May and extend until November.
“It appears that the South Country school district has engaged in a pattern of discrimination against students who have come to this country in a refugee or undocumented status,” Brill said. 
The students and their parents spoke to Newsday under condition of anonymity, saying they are afraid of the gangs, but also of being deported because they have been linked to them. 
South Country schools superintendent Joseph Giani issued a statement saying he couldn’t discuss “any specific student situation” due to federal law, but said, “in general, the district vigorously denies any such allegations.”
Giani added that the district and its board of education are “committed to providing an educational environment that promotes respect, dignity and equality.” However, he said district policy provides for “a range of possible disciplinary responses, and the district has a zero tolerance for gang-related behavior.”
A police spokesman said he could not comment on specific cases, but he defended the department’s collaboration with schools.
“The Suffolk County Police Department at times provides information regarding possible indications of public-safety issues, such as gang activity or drug use, to school districts, so that those districts are familiar with possible warning signs,” said Assistant Commissioner Justin Meyers. “What school districts do with that information is up to them.”
According to letters sent by the district to the teens’ parents, the students got out-of-school suspensions for violating the dress code and engaging in prohibited behavior.
A 15-year-old Guatemalan immigrant attending ninth grade was suspended for “wearing clothing containing the Chicago Bulls symbols/logo” that the district correspondence says is “associated with gang membership.” A 16-year-old immigrant from El Salvador, also in ninth grade, was suspended for “engaging in gang-related behavior” and “throwing signs in the hallways.” An 18-year-old Salvadoran immigrant in 10th grade was suspended for “suspected gang affiliation” and “showing gang signs.” 
MS-13 gang members use a variety of hand shapes, including one where pointed fingers resemble “devil horns,” similar to the bull horns found in the logo of the Chicago-based NBA franchise.
A fourth immigrant, 20, who dropped out of the school last year, is also represented by the law firm. Brill said the names of all four were included on a list of alleged gang members and associates that the lawyer said came from the Suffolk police.
Meyers said he could not comment on the authenticity of the list without knowing the names of the students.
“At no time are we saying that MS-13 is not a serious threat,” Brill said. “At no time are we saying that MS-13 members should not be prosecuted. But what we have here is school misconduct, minor school misconduct at best and possibly constitutionally-protected activity like free speech, being demonized.”
The suspensions, he said, raise concerns about “what type of information is flowing back and forth between the district and the police department.”
During a recent interview with Newsday, Suffolk Police Commissioner Timothy Sini said the department is “being extremely aggressive” in looking for gang members but is very careful, using “multiple indicators” before giving anyone that designation.
“Merely because someone tells us someone is a gang member, that is not enough,” Sini said. “We have very strict protocols, based on best practices articulated by the FBI, before we identify someone as a gang member.”
The accusations illustrate the difficulties faced by institutions such as police and school districts, feeling the pressure to counter the spread of what’s proved to be a ferocious gang while having to guard against violating civil rights.
The MS-13 gang, also known as mara salvatrucha, is said to have originated among Salvadorans in the Los Angeles prisons, spreading to Central America and growing into a transnational crime syndicate with tentacles on Long Island.
The South Country Central School District’s Code of Conduct anticipated the gang threat, specifying prohibited items in its dress code, such as “medals, medallions, jewelry with gang symbols,” “the wearing of any item that contains language or symbols promoting or endorsing violence” and “wearing any combination of clothing which law enforcement agencies currently consider gang-related.”
Schools across the country have had to adopt similar policies, remaining vigilant for trends and sharing information with law enforcement, said Sgt. Julie Spry, of the Los Angeles School Police Department, whose force guards a system with more than 734,000 students.
In Los Angeles, “the school district has bulletins that identify school conduct and student behavior” associated with gangs, Spry said. “There are schools where you can’t wear a certain color hat and in others where you can wear any hat you want” depending on the nature of local gangs.
Educators have to take measures before gangs spread, said Elliott Duchon, superintendent of the Jurupa Unified School District, a suburban area about 60 miles east of Los Angeles.
“We generally do not allow any professional sports teams” to be represented in clothes, because their colors, initials or symbols come to stand for gangs, Duchon said. “They are kind of ‘mad-dogging,’” or intimidating, “ . . . and if you have two gangs in school and they wear their colors, then that’s ripe for a fight.”
In the South Country district, which is comprised of Brookhaven, Bellport and East Patchogue, the young men and their relatives say they were labeled gang members without any warnings on what to avoid, disputing one of the suspension notices saying the students had been warned about the clothing. 
“I came over here [to the United States]because of this problem of gangs, because back in El Salvador I was threatened, that if I didn’t join them they were going to beat me,” said the 10th-grader, who arrived less than a year ago and holds two jobs, working in construction during the day and at a restaurant at night. 
He was accused of making gang signs with his fingers while putting on a baseball cap, but he said he was only adjusting it. He had worn a Chicago Bulls jacket that he and his father say belonged to his dad. They say they didn’t know what it meant.
“Right now, I feel very saddened. If I am thrown out and deported, I would be in danger,” the student said.
A 15-year-old said he was wearing a Chicago Bulls T-shirt that belonged to his stepfather because he couldn’t find clean clothes that day. “They told me that meant I was in a gang,” he said.
The 16-year-old said he wasn’t flashing gang signs but making an obscene gesture at another student during a school-hallway argument. “We’re being unjustly accused.”
The students, who were all enrolled in the English as a New Language program, and their parents say they have been left out of school since their suspensions instead of being offered alternative instruction. 
New York State Department of Education officials said only that they are “reaching out to the district in this matter” but could not elaborate further.
Irma Solis, Suffolk County Chapter director of the New York Civil Liberties Union, said the suspensions raise red flags about schools and police collaboration, arguing the code of conduct “is very vague . . . and it pretty much gives schools and the [police school resource]officers and the security guards the discretion to pick and choose who is in violation.”

LISUSP0623

Lawyer: Students at Bellport High wrongly accused of MS-13 ties

Lawyer: High school students wrongly accused of MS-13 ties

3 Latino students say they were wrongfully accused of being MS-13 gang members

liSUSP0620_VIDEO

Law enforcement officials battling MS-13 on Long Island told a congressional panel Tuesday that the federal government needs to beef up screening and support for unaccompanied children from Central America to prevent the brutal gang from recruiting new members.
Unaccompanied children already have been traumatized by the violence they fled to come to the United States, Long Island police and other witnesses told Rep. Peter King (R-Seaford) and Rep. Kathleen Rice (D-Garden City) at the hearing on MS-13. It was held in the Central Islip federal courthouse not far from a park where the bodies of four young men, believed to be victims of MS-13 violence, were found in April.
Young immigrants struggle with language and cultural differences, lag behind peers at school and sometimes face hostility from their new neighbors, the witnesses said. Without assistance from the federal government and local communities, some have turned to gangs for support and protection.
“Unaccompanied minors are particularly vulnerable to gang involvement, especially those who may have witnessed violence at a young age and experienced significant trauma,” Suffolk County Sheriff Vincent DeMarco said. “Without appropriate interventions, some of these children are destined to engage with criminal gangs such as MS-13.”
The 2½-hour hearing focused on MS-13, which is tied to 17 killings in Suffolk County alone since January 2016. It provided an overview of how gang members entered the United States and recruited new members. Federal, state and local officials testified, as did the parents of two Brentwood teenagers slain in September in what authorities said was an MS-13 attack. 
“MS-13 is a morally depraved transnational murderous gang terrorizing innocent people,” King said. 
Federal authorities need to do a better job of screening sponsors who take in unaccompanied minors, DeMarco said, calling loopholes in the federal Office of Refugee Resettlement program a threat to national security. 
“Some youths are placed in families with siblings who are gang-involved and they are concentrated in towns with high rates of gang activity,” DeMarco said. “This accelerates the cycle of crime and incarceration in many lower-income communities.” 
Federal resettlement officials did not return requests for comment. 
More than 8,000 unaccompanied minors now live on Long Island, said Patrick Young, program director of the Central American Refugee Center.
King asked Suffolk police Commissioner Timothy Sini and acting Nassau police Commissioner Thomas Krumpter if MS-13 was “gaming” U.S. immigration policies by sending members to the United States through the unaccompanied minors program. Sini said only a handful of about 4,500 kids resettled in Brentwood, Central Islip and other Suffolk County communities have joined MS-13, but he agreed stronger vetting of immigrants and sponsors was needed. 
“We have a legal and moral obligation to place these children in our communities,” Sini said, “but we need to do it responsibly.”
Krumpter called on federal officials to appoint caseworkers to unaccompanied minors to ensure they receive social services and other support. “They need to succeed or the gangs will become their families,” Krumpter said. “We have to make sure these kids are being tracked and taken care of.”
Young said Long Island leaders had failed unaccompanied minors. “When the children came to Long Island,” he said, they were met with hostility from some local officials and with illegal exclusion from school.
“Few of the refugee children received any special orientation or welcome to their communities in which they arrived,” Young said. “Some told us they were aware that they were perceived as a problem rather than as children. Federal, state and county governments failed to make provisions for the reception of the children.” 
Evelyn Rodriguez, mother of Kayla Cuevas, one of the girls authorities said was killed by MS-13 members last fall, said Brentwood school officials did nothing for two years after she told them that MS-13 members were bullying her 16-year-old daughter. “When our kids are being threatened, they do not contact the police,” she said. “They like to keep it undercover. They like to say they are taking care of it, but they cannot.” 
A spokesman for the Brentwood school district did not return calls for comment. 
Immigrant advocates, meanwhile, called on federal and local governments to invest more in education and gang-intervention programs. They criticized King for not inviting more immigrant victims of gang violence to testify at the hearing. 
“We want to demand that the voices of immigrant families, who are the majority of the victims, be included in this conversation,” said Frank Sprouse-Guzman of Make The Road New York. “We want our community treated with dignity, not with prejudice. It’s time for a change.”
With Chau Lam

LIGANG0621

Better screening, support  of minors needed to stop MS-13, federal panel told

Minors need to be screened to stop  MS-13, panel told

Rep. Peter King leads LI hearing on MS-13 gang problem

LIGANG0621_VIDEO

Long Island law-enforcement officials and the parents of two slain Brentwood girls will testify at Tuesday’s congressional hearing on the notorious MS-13 street gang that authorities have linked to 11 killings in Brentwood and Central Islip in the past year. 
Rep. Peter King (R-Seaford) said the hearing’s first panel includes Suffolk Police Commissioner Timothy Sini, Suffolk County Sheriff Vincent DeMarco, Homeland Security Special Agent in Charge Angel M. Melendez and William Sweeney, the assistant director of the FBI’s New York field office. A Nassau police representative and an official from New York Attorney General Eric T. Schneiderman’s office also will participate in the hearing, King said. 
The hearing’s second panel will include Evelyn Rodriguez of Brentwood, whose daughter, Kayla Cuevas, 16, was killed in September, allegedly by MS-13 gang members; Robert Mickens, the father of Cuevas’ friend Nisa Mickens, 15, who also was slain last year in what authorities said was a gang attack, and Howard Koenig, superintendent of Central Islip schools. 
The four-hour hearing will be held at the federal courthouse in Central Islip on Tuesday, beginning at 9:30 a.m. 
King, the chairman of a Homeland Security subcommittee, said he called the hearing because he wants to know how the federal government can help Long Island address the MS-13 issue.

LITEST0616

Officials, victims’ parents to testify on MS-13 gang, Peter King says

King: Parents to testify on MS-13 at hearing

Peter King

Bridget Murphy

Dozens of alleged MS-13 street gang members are facing conspiracy and other felony charges after arrests Thursday that followed a joint law enforcement operation in Nassau County targeting the criminal syndicate with ties to El Salvador and a reputation for brutal machete attacks.
Nassau District Attorney Madeline Singas said a grand jury had indicted 41 alleged MS-13 members in connection with 32 violent acts since early 2013 that included eight attempted murders, along with other shootings and slashings.
“Today we are taking a major step to reclaim our streets, our schools and our parks from this gang,” Singas said. “ . . . With these arrests, 41 of MS-13’s worst are facing serious criminal charges.”
Nearly three-dozen of the defendants face first-degree conspiracy charges that carry a penalty of up to life in prison. The district attorney said the prosecution’s theory is that MS-13’s goal is to inflict acts of terror and “all of these individual acts are committed in furtherance of that conspiracy — that existence of that gang.”
She said all those indicted allegedly had committed at least one act contributing toward the conspiracy. Records show that such acts also include possessing machetes or bats, making gang hand gestures, throwing rocks, and repeatedly following someone and staring at that person in “an intimidating manner.”
Nassau Acting Police Commissioner Thomas Krumpter said the defendants were ages 15 to 30 years old. He said the bust grew out of “good old-fashioned detective work,” and would put a dent in the gang’s activities in areas including Roosevelt, Uniondale, Hempstead and Westbury.
Prosecutors said authorities arrested eight defendants in Nassau and one in Maryland. Ten defendants already were inmates in Nassau’s jail, eight were in upstate prisons, five were in the custody of U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, three had been deported and six remained at large.
The district attorney said 17 of the 41 defendants came to the United States as unaccompanied minors.
Singas said she wouldn’t provide specific details of the cases connected to the indictment “because this gang is ruthless towards those who cooperate with law enforcement.”
The district attorney said late last year her office teamed with police and federal partners to investigate MS-13 and analyzed several closed cases involving gang members.
She said investigators looked for patterns, and cultivated the trust of “many with deep knowledge of the workings of this gang” while building a case that led to the 85-count indictment.
During Nassau County Court arraignments Thursday, some defense attorneys said their clients previously had been arrested, with those offenses forming the basis for new conspiracy charges. In one case, a lawyer said his client already had been sentenced and was serving probation for an offense now being used as the underlying basis for the conspiracy charge.
Singas acknowledged the case involved an “innovative use” of conspiracy charges, and added that appellate courts had “specifically upheld the use of conspiracy in these kinds of investigations.”
Eighteen defendants in all were arraigned Thursday, with defense attorneys entering not-guilty pleas. Among the defendants was Luis Mancia, 21, who denied he was part of a gang.
“That is not true. I am not a MS-13 member . . . I beg you to hear me!” Mancia cried out to Acting State Supreme Court Justice Teresa Corrigan.
Corrigan advised Mancia to speak to his attorney, who would speak for him. “Those outbursts are only going to come back to hurt you and haunt you,” she said.
Among others arraigned were Jose Barahona, 20, of Uniondale, who already faced five counts of attempted murder for allegedly shooting at a group of people last August in a Hempstead yard.
Others included Evilson Orellana, 19, Francisco Romero, 18, and Cesar David Avila-Rodriguez, 17, all from Hempstead and previously facing charges in connection with a 2016 machete attack at Hempstead Lake State Park that injured three high school students.
Other defendants included Miguel Urias Argueta, 18, of Westbury and brothers Jose Hernandez, 26, and Fidel Hernandez, 23, both of New Cassel. All three already faced attempted murder charges in connection with Westbury machete attacks.
Jason Molina, assistant special agent in charge of the federal Homeland Security Investigations’ New York office, said Thursday that authorities were waging war on MS-13 — a group he said thrives on spreading violence and strives for power and control of neighborhood turf by using fear and intimidation tactics.
Thursday’s bust came a day after his agency — the investigative arm of ICE — announced a local task force that will use criminal arrests and civil immigration powers to combat MS-13 and other gangs.
Thursday’s gang sweep also follows a quadruple homicide in a Central Islip park in April and the September beating deaths of two teenage girls from Brentwood that authorities have linked to MS-13.
Law enforcement officials previously arrested several MS-13 members in the slayings of Brentwood High School students Kayla Cuevas, 16, and Nisa Mickens, 15, and gang member Jose Pena-Hernandez, 18. Authorities said Pena’s MS-13 cohorts believed he was an informant.
U.S. Attorney General Jeff Sessions vowed “to demolish” MS-13 during an April visit to Suffolk County following the discovery of the mutilated bodies of four young men in a park. The slayings of Justin Llivicura, 16, of East Patchogue; Jorge Tigre, 18, of Bellport; Michael Lopez Banegas, 20, of Brentwood; and Jefferson Villalobos, 18, of Pompano Beach, Florida, remain unsolved.

LIGANG0616

Nassau DA: 41 alleged MS-13 members indicted in sweep

DA: 41 alleged MS-13 members indicted in 'violent spree'

41 alleged members of MS-13 indicted for four-year violence spree

The recent eruption of gang violence on Long Island — highlighted by the discovery of the mutilated bodies of four young men in a public park — fits what experts and sources say is a new and more deadly profile of MS-13.
At the heart of that profile are newcomers from Central America eager to make their mark within an immigrant gang already known for its code of brutality and its weapon of choice, the machete, the sources say.
They represent a very small but dangerous cohort among the thousands of young people under 18 who, according to federal statistics, have illegally entered the United States unaccompanied by adults since 2015.
These newcomers have found a niche in MS-13 on Long Island — replacing those who have been arrested — and are focused on proving themselves to be even more violent than established gang members.
Experts say MS-13 is distinguishable among gangs in that its hallmark is not to shake down store owners or to protect drug-dealing operations. Instead, members commit violence for its own sake, in large part as a way to carve out and control the turf they consider theirs, purging it of rival gang members and others perceived as having disrespected MS-13.
Brutality for MS-13 is “considered as part of their identity . . . with their DNA,” said Hector Silva, a former deputy chief of mission at the Washington embassy of MS-13’s home base, El Salvador. An expert on the gang, he is now a research fellow at the Center for Latin American and Latino Studies at American University in Washington.
The quadruple homicide in Central Islip last month and other killings linked to MS-13 -- including the beating deaths of two teenage girls from Brentwood last year -- have generated fear within the immigrant communities where MS-13 is a fact of daily life. Most but not all declined to speak about the group.
“The reality is we’re all living in panic right now,” said Maria Estrada, 46, of Central Islip. “You see them [gang members]. It’s very common that you walk down the street, and you see kids that belong to the gang. And you have to drop your head. You live with fear, and I feel terrorized.”
Feride Castillo, 33, who lives in Brentwood, says violence defines her community now. “You kind of wake up every day not knowing if there’s going to be another incident. Another life taken,” she said. “I kind of wake up every day terrified because I don’t want to hear about another situation.”
The escalating brutality is starkly depicted in a video that surfaced after the Central Islip killings. It shows the bodies of the four young males — not just slain but also mutilated with both blunt and sharpened weapons, possibly baseball bats and machetes, sources said. Authorities acknowledge the existence of the video but won’t comment on its contents because of the ongoing investigation.
The killings of the two girls, Kayla Cuevas, 16, and Nisa Mickens, 15, as well as that of an MS-13 member, Jose Pena, 18, suspected of being an informant, “exemplify the depravity of a gang whose primary mission is murder,” then U.S. Attorney for the Eastern District Robert Capers said in March.
The machete is a principal weapon used by MS-13 members, in part because of its savagery, but also because it is commonly available and used for agriculture in Central America, sources say. It is a cheaper to purchase both there and in the United States, where guns are harder to obtain and more expensive, several experts said.
MS-13 members don’t typically have great financial resources. Recently arrested members of the gang have been employed as restaurant workers, car washers, landscapers, salad makers and sheet-metal platers, sources said.
A member of MS-13 usually puts in an eight-hour day at a low-paying job, say the sources -- but then is required to go out at night and “put in work,” or hunt down perceived enemies.
Suffolk County Sheriff Vincent DeMarco, who said there are 26 members and associates of the gang in the county prison system, said he has seen MS-13 members get younger and more violent over time.
“What you’re seeing is that they’re younger. And that’s very alarming because they are so desensitized to violence and committing violence at such a young age,” he said.
“Some of these are 16, 17, 18-year-olds who have no problem with hacking somebody up with a machete or knocking someone’s brains out of their head with a bat or a sledgehammer, and it doesn’t even faze them,” DeMarco added.
Federal prosecutors have charged six members of MS-13 in connection with the September killings of the two Brentwood High School girls.
There have been no arrests in the killings of the four males in Central Islip — Justin Llivicura, 16, of East Patchogue; Jorge Tigre, 18, of Bellport; Michael Lopez Benagas, 20, of Brentwood; and Jefferson Villalobos, 18, of Pompano Beach, Fla., who was visiting his cousin, Benagas.
Suffolk Police Commissioner Timothy Sini said the injuries to Mickens and Cuevas “were some of the worst wounds I’ve ever seen.”
The skeleton of gang member Pena, who also attended Brentwood High School, was recovered in October on the grounds of the Pilgrim Psychiatric Center in Brentwood. It “bore the mark of numerous stab wounds, “Capers said.
The degree of recent bloodshed on Long Island is remarkable, according to experts.
“I don’t have any recollection of that sort of a body count in my 30-year career,” says Ron Hosko, the retired head of the FBI’s Criminal Investigative Division.
Those who have studied MS-13 say instances in which numerous victims were repeatedly mutilated with sharp and blunt instruments are more typical of the group’s operations in El Salvador.
“That’s the type of violence found typically in Central America,” said Charles Katz, a professor at the University of Arizona, an expert on MS-13 who directs the school’s Center for the Prevention of Violence and Community Safety.
U.S. Attorney General Jeff Sessions late last month came to Central Islip and vowed a federal crackdown on MS-13. And President Donald Trump has blamed the Obama administration’s “weak illegal immigration policies” for allowing MS-13 to spread across the United States.
But some who have studied the situation disagree with that assessment.
Fulton Armstrong, a research fellow at American University’s Latin Center, in Washington, and who has been a staffer on Latin American issues for both the National Security Council and the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, says the Justice Department has been waging a war against gangs such as MS-13 for decades.
“It’s outrageous for the Trump administration to try to blame the gang phenomenon on Obama,” Armstrong said in an email. “We were working this problem long before Obama took office, and Bush-Cheney policies were significant drivers.”
The violent culture of MS-13 comes out of the at-times lawlessness of El Salvador, where police and the army and street gangs in poorer neighborhoods have waged fights for control with almost no holds barred, Silva and Katz say.
For the most part, MS-13 gang members who come to the United States settle in areas where there are already Salvadoran communities — on Long Island in Brentwood, Central Islip, Huntington Station, Hempstead and Freeport.
Silva says they are “embedded” among the law-abiding members of such communities, and will survive as long as people in those communities won’t turn on them because of fear of their terror or a distrust of law enforcement.
Authorities have made frequent pleas for assistance and tips to members of the immigrant communities.
Community activist Carolyn Baez, director of programs at Youth Enrichment Services, said she was in her office directly across from where the four Central Islip bodies were found and saw a number of parents concerned, fearing their children were among the dead. Among them was a woman who was crying.
“She said, ‘I think one of the victims that was killed was my son, but I can’t say anything because I’m undocumented.’” 
Baez says MS-13 members get involved in violence because they see it as the norm in their countries. “I look at these kids’ faces,” Baez said. “And I say what’s going to happen tonight? What’s going on in their lives? Am I going to see them again?”

LIGANG0507

MS-13: Experts see a new and more deadly profile emerge

MS-13 on LI: A new and more deadly profile

LIGANG0507_WEB

Attorney General Jeff Sessions pledged “to demolish” an MS-13 street gang he said is bent on killing, raping and destroying, during a visit to Suffolk County on Friday, as he assured law enforcement officials fighting the threat on Long Island that he and President Donald Trump “have your back.”
Sessions offered specifics about the scope and reach of MS-13, laid out elements of the government’s battle plan, and defended the president’s strict immigration policy as one that “ends the rampant . . . illegality” while leaving flexibility for investigators, in a speech before police commissioners, sheriffs and other local officials at the Central Islip federal courthouse.
As he spoke, about 100 demonstrators critical of Trump’s immigration policies gathered outside, speaking out against strict enforcement that makes immigrants vulnerable to deportation, even those that assist police. “Say it loud, say it clear, Sessions you’re not welcome here,” some shouted.
Sessions, however, remained unapologetic.
“I have a message for the gangs that are targeting our young people: We are targeting you. We are coming after you,” Sessions said.
The Justice Department will have “zero tolerance” for gangs, he insisted.
“If you are a gang member, know this: We will find you. We will devastate your networks,” Sessions said. “We will starve your revenue sources, deplete your ranks and seize your profits. We will not concede a single block or street corner to your vicious tactics.” 
Authorities say the MS-13 gang is responsible for a series of savage slayings in Suffolk’s Brentwood and Central Islip hamlets, with the body count of victims in incidents linked or thought to be related to gangs rising to 11 people in the last year. Those victims have been young Latinos and blacks, many of school age.
Sessions said Trump “explicitly talked to me about the murders you’ve seen here, the young people we lost,” adding that in “the Trump era, and you can be confident, law enforcement and leadership, we have your back.”
Trump singled out MS-13 himself, speaking to gun owners at the NRA Leadership Forum in Atlanta on Friday. “You know about MS-13? It’s not pleasant for them anymore, folks. It’s not pleasant for them anymore. That’s a bad group . . . Get them the hell out of here, right? Get them out.”
Protesters remained skeptical about the administration’s focus, particularly as they said the issue has been entangled with the debate over illegal immigration, which they fear will curtail cooperation between local police and affected communities.
Gabriela Castillo, coordinator of the Long Island Civic Engagement Table, which promotes civic participation among communities of color, said Sessions was not here to help make Brentwood and Central Islip safer, as he claims. 
“I don’t think this has anything to do with public safety,” she said. “This is a convenient opportunity for him to make political talking points and to promote an anti-immigrant agenda.”
A small group of counter-demonstrators also gathered.
Sessions dismissed advocates’ criticism as “an exaggerated argument,” though he refused to offer guarantees to people in the country illegally that they wouldn’t be deported in exchange for cooperation.
Rep. Peter King (R-Seaford), who invited Sessions in the wake of the brutal slaying earlier this month of four young men whose bodies were found in a park a couple of miles from the courthouse, said those outside “should be out there on their knees, thanking” Sessions for paying attention to the gang issue, “not protesting.”
Immigrants who want to cooperate can still “call in the 911 anonymously,” Sessions said, adding that to his knowledge there were no cases of seeking witnesses to deport them.
Sessions met privately with law enforcement officials — including police commissioners and sheriffs from Suffolk and Nassau, the Hempstead village police chief and representatives from the state police, and the Suffolk probation department. Attendees characterized it as a friendly exchange where Sessions mostly listened to their assessments of the local gang situation and registered their concerns and requests for more federal prosecutors in this region.
“I think you will see some more personnel . . . some more focused efforts coming from Justice” as a result of the meeting with locals, said King. “It’s hard to quantify but it means a lot” to have the federal department’s backing.
Suffolk Police Commissioner Timothy Sini called it “a very positive meeting” in which he brought up a $500,000 grant that the police department and the federal prosecutors have applied for to “help offset some of our patrolling” costs. He added that “certainly we had law enforcement officials in that room who were very receptive of our mission to eradicate MS-13 and very supportive of providing necessary resources to get that job done and that’s a great thing for Suffolk County.”
Sessions also received the families of two suspected victims of the gang, teenage girls whose bodies were found half a year ago in a Brentwood neighborhood, following a brutal assault that law enforcement sources said involved machetes and baseball bats. Other relatives of victims of gang violence complained, though, that they had not been invited.
Overall, Sessions’ message was consistent with previous statements from him and the administration, which connect the gang problem to larger plans involving immigration controls, tight borders and plans to crack down on crime networks.
He said the United States must crack down on illegal immigration, in particular across the U.S.-Mexico border.
“We cannot continue with this transporting across our border illegal immigrants who have not been properly vetted and actually are part of criminal organizations,” he said. “We’ve got to dismantle these human smuggling networks that have become pretty effective in bringing people into the country illegally.”
Sessions added that the problem is not unique to Long Island. MS-13 now has 10,000 members in at least 40 states, he said. The gang, he added, has about 30,000 members outside the United States, with its international headquarters in effect based in the prison system of El Salvador.
“Transnational criminal organizations represent one of the gravest threats to American public safety today,” he said. “They enrich themselves by peddling poison in our communities, trafficking children for prostitution, inflicting horrific violence in our neighborhoods where they operate, and shipping the ill-gotten wealth back to their home criminal enterprise.”
Sessions’ visit comes as politicians and law enforcement officials have declared war against gangs operating in the region and specifically against MS-13. The gang, which is said to have originated in Los Angeles and continued to grow out of El Salvador’s civil war in the 1980s, is known for vicious assaults that, for the most part, target perceived rivals in immigrant communities.
With David Olson, Andrew Smith and Bart Jones

LISESS0429

Attorney General Jeff Sessions: Goal is ‘to demolish’ MS-13

AG Jeff Sessions on LI: Goal is ‘to demolish’ MS-13 

Attorney General Jeff Sessions: Goal is 'to demolish' MS-13

Nicole Fuller

Attorney General Jeff Sessions spoke to reporters at the courthouse in Central Islip Friday after addressing a gathering of Long Island law enforcement officials for more than 20 minutes on his plan to combat MS-13 gang violence.
Here’s a transcript of that question-and-answer session:
Q: How do you square the need for strict enforcement of immigration laws with the need of local law enforcement to gain the trust and confidence of the community, many of whom are undocumented immigrations?
SESSIONS: “Well, I’ll just say this. I think that’s an exaggerated argument, number one. Most police departments don’t follow it. The vast majority in America don’t adhere to it. There’s still opportunities to call into 911 anonymously. And we’re not, to my knowledge, out seeking down witnesses to crimes to deport. I don’t think we have any examples of that. So I think the better policy is to follow the law as Congress has set forth that basically says persons who are convicted of a crime in the United States shall be deported.
Q: You have said before, that anyone who is here illegally is subject to deportation, so can you reassure, or what do you say to those who are undocumented, that if they do report a crime, you won’t deport them?
SESSIONS: “Look, I’m the attorney general of the United States. Congress passes the laws. Persons who enter the country unlawfully are subject to being deported. The president, the secretary of Homeland Security, Gen. Kelly, have made clear that our priority tomorrow, right now is fully invested in dealing with people who come here unlawfully and commit crimes, additional crimes, that’s who we’re focusing on first. The president said . . . and I’ll repeat what I said earlier. We have a very generous immigration system. . . . It cannot be that the attorney general grants immunity contrary to law.”
Q: There were some protesters here. I don’t know if you saw them when you came in, but they are claiming this is merely an attempt to advance an anti-immigration agenda of the president, turning this into a political event, rather than one of substance.
SESSIONS: “Well, the president directed me to focus on international criminal organizations by executive order when I took office. The MS-13, for example, is an international organization, with 30,000 members, 10,000 in the United States, so I think there is nothing anti-immigrant in enforcing the law in that regard. Congressman King [Rep. Peter King (R-Seaford)] shared with me some of your experience here, and it’s more acute perhaps than some other places. But it’s not unlike what we’ve seen in other places. One of the things that you want to do with immigration policy is it should serve the national interest . . .”
KING: “To me, it’s shameful, it’s disgraceful, that leaders in the community, who claim to be leaders, people who claim to be elected officials, are criticizing the attorney general. Imagine what they’d say if he didn’t come, ‘That he doesn’t care about Central Islip. He doesn’t care about New York.’ The fact that we’ve had these vicious murders and within days of my talking to the attorney general, he agreed to come here, to me shows the full strength of the federal government is to eradicate MS-13 and they should be on their knees thanking him, not out there protesting.”
Q: How do you think it got so bad with MS-13? Do you think federal or local law enforcement underestimated that for far too long?
SESSIONS: “I have on my staff now two United States attorneys, Rod Rosenberg just got confirmed, Rosenstein, just got confirmed as the deputy attorney general. And Dana Boente is still the U.S. Attorney in Virginia. But they prosecuted these cases. They report to me. Those were two hotbed areas like here. And Bridget [Rhode, acting U.S. attorney for the Eastern District of New York] tells me here that they really did make progress. But the lesson from it is, even the Mafia tends to come back after they’ve been hammered. So you can drive them down, and we will do so. And this time, we’re going to try to keep the pressure on them. I do think there has been some laxity at the border has made it much easier for the leaders in El Salvador to move people into this country. There is no doubt about that.”
Q: Have you made any specific commitment in terms of Suffolk County to fight gangs and do you have any evidence that MS-13 is sending people here?
SESSIONS: “All the experts tell me they are sending people here. They’re sending people into the United States. The evidence also suggests — well it proves — that they’re more cohesive than they used to be. And they’re sending more money back to the gang leaders in El Salvador than 10 years ago. So for some reason, the gang has gotten tougher. It’s more unified.”
Q: Sending money here to fight MS-13?
SESSIONS: “Well what I’ve done already, a month or so ago, has made violent crime and gang crime a priority of the Department of Justice. I talked to the U.S. Attorney here and told her that we are going to redirect — we don’t have a lot of money; there’s not a big increase in our budget, we actually got a small decrease but not as much as most departments — and we’re going to focus additional resources to high-crime areas, and Bridget thinks that this district would, this office would compete very well if there’s a fair allocation. We will be able to increase the number of prosecutors deployed and violent crime will be a high priority.”
Q: Is the DOJ going into El Salvador with any operatives to make any kind of arrests to cripple the organization and bring them back to the U.S. for prosecution?
SESSIONS: “Well, that’s a good question. The Drug Enforcement Administration and the Department of Justice attorneys are in Central America and El Salvador today. We’ve had good relations with their government. They’ve been cooperative with us. I had the attorney generals of Guatemala, Honduras and El Salvador in my office a few weeks ago. They’ve been very cooperative. I do believe they share a common interest in targeting this violent network. I do think that maybe there’s some common ground to be reached like maybe more effort can be made to make sure the gang leaders can’t operate out of the jail. That might be too hard to do. So I’m going to continue to pursue that relationship. Career people in the department tell me they believe the attorney generals in those countries are sincere. So we look forward to trying to advance that. That’s just one aspect of it. I’m a believer that you start here and you prosecute the people that commit the crimes, or you particularly target the transports and the organizers and you also look for ways to put pressure on them back home. All of that’s part of the process and is actually part of a plan, a draft plan, that I have in my criminal division right now. So I would just say to you, I participated in efforts again the Colombia cartels. Basically Colombia itself made the final victory in hammering the Colombian cartels. We’ve proven that we can deal with the Mafia and we are going to be able to deal with this too.”

LIQA0429

Transcript: U.S. Attorney General Jeff Sessions  after MS-13 remarks

Sessions’ responses on immigration, MS-13 strategy

LIQA0429_WEB

Twenty-five State Police troopers will join Suffolk County police and the FBI in combating the “scourge” of gang violence in neighborhoods in Brentwood and Central Islip, Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo announced Wednesday.
“We will not rest until MS-13 is out of business, because we have zero tolerance in this state for the thuggery that MS-13 has made their calling card,” Cuomo said at State Police barracks in Brentwood, referring to the gang authorities have linked to a growing number murders in the area.
The state also will contribute aircraft, intelligence expertise, electronic surveillance and vehicles to the anti-gang effort, Cuomo said.
The initiative comes amid growing national attention to gang violence on Long Island since the April 12 discovery of the mutilated bodies of four young men in a Central Islip park.
Suffolk authorities believe the quadruple murder is the work of MS-13, which also has been linked to several other slayings, including the murders in September of two teenage girls from Brentwood.
On Friday, U.S. Attorney General Jeff Sessions is scheduled to visit the federal courthouse in Central Islip to discuss gang violence. 
Sessions and President Donald Trump have blamed what Trump called the Obama administration’s “weak illegal immigration policies” for MS-13 violence.
Cuomo did not respond directly to the assertion, saying he did not “want to engage in politics.” But he said the Obama administration focused its deportation efforts on criminals, including gang members.
Troopers based in Brentwood currently focus on highways and state properties.
But under the plan Cuomo announced Wednesday, the troopers also will patrol in neighborhoods as, “a highly visible presence to deter this activity,” said Cuomo spokesman Colin Brennan.
Some of the 25 troopers in the anti-gang initiative will come from elsewhere in the state, he said.
Six of the 25 troopers will join the Long Island Gang Task Force, comprised of federal, state and local agencies.
Cuomo also announced State Police are creating “a high intensity gang unit” that will be active statewide, “especially focusing on MS-13 on Long Island.”
County Legis. Monica Martinez (D-Brentwood) welcomed the state effort.
“I’m glad people are realizing help is needed, and that it can’t just be a county issue or a town issue,” she said.
Before traveling to Brentwood, Cuomo visited Bethpage State Park, where he signed the $2.5-billion Clean Water Infrastructure Act, which he called a “historic water-quality initiative.” 
The act includes money to create a program to give homeowners and small businesses rebates to replace and upgrade outdated septic systems, to build water treatment systems in Smithtown and Kings Park and to make other water-quality improvements.
“These are things that will have a very lasting impact in a terrifically good way,” said Senate Majority Leader John Flanagan (R-East Northport).

POCUOM0427

Cuomo: State Police to patrol neighborhoods to fight MS-13 gang

Cuomo: State Police to join fight against MS-13

Politics

Cuomo targets MS-13, gang violence with new initiative

Cuomo announces Suffolk anti-gang initiative

About 100 people gathered outside the Central Islip federal courthouse Friday morning to demonstrate against the attorney general’s visit, sending the message that “immigrants are welcome here.” 
The demonstrators gathered about two hours before Attorney General Jeff Sessions addressed law enforcement officials during a stop in the same community where the bodies of four young men were found in a park just over two weeks ago — the latest violent incident in Central Islip and Brentwood to be investigated as a possible gang-related killing.
In his speech, Sessions said the government’s mission is “to demolish” MS-13, the group authorities say are responsible for a series of savage slayings here.
Sessions laid out elements of the government’s battle plan against the gang, and defended the president’s immigration policy as one that ensures immigrants come to the country legally.
Before Sessions spoke, the demonstrators chanted “Sessions go home” and “No hate, no fear, immigrants are welcome here.”
Suffolk police officers from the department’s Community Oriented Police Enforcement Unit supervised the peaceful crowd gathered at Spur Drive North and Eastview Drive. 
The Rev. Calvin O. Butts III, pastor of the famed Abyssinian Baptist Church in Harlem and the longtime president of SUNY Old Westbury, was among the demonstrators.
“We are here because we do not believe that Jefferson Beauregard Sessions is the man who can actually speak to the violence that is affecting so many of our communities,” Butts said. “We think his insensitivity, his racism, his bigotry — all of that excludes him from being able to hear what the real needs are.”
Butts also emphasized that Sessions “needs to speak to the people who are directly impacted by this violence.”
Sessions was scheduled to meet privately with crime victims during his stop on Long Island.
“He needs to talk, not just to the parents of those who were killed, but he needs to talk to all the people because this violence issue, coupled with the immigration issue, is a very complex one, and you cannot deal with that just simply with one aspect of our community, with the police or law enforcement,” Butts said.
Authorities set up a penned-off area for a handful of counter-protesters who supported Sessions.
Vincent Rasulo of East Patchogue carried a large yellow “Don’t Tread on Me” flag.
“I’m here to support the attorney general in his message to fight MS-13,” said Rasulo, a member of the Brookhaven Republican Party committee. “Anything he can do to come in here and solve this problem, I’m in favor of 100 percent.”
Of the demonstrators protesting against Sessions, he said: “I totally support them being here. I just don’t agree with what they are saying.”
Rep. Peter King (R-Seaford), who introduced Sessions before the attorney general’s speech, said it was “disgraceful” that people were protesting Sessions’ visit, adding that they should be “on their knees” thanking him.
Shortly after the speech only a half dozen demonstrators remained as police took down the barricades. The final two counter-demonstrators chatted amicably with their opposition as they all left.
Earlier, Gabriela Castillo, coordinator of the protest and of the Long Island Civic Engagement Table, which promotes civic participation among communities of color, said Sessions was not at the courthouse to help make Brentwood and Central Islip safer. 
“I don’t think this has anything to do with public safety,” she said. “I think this is a convenient opportunity for him to make political talking points and to promote an anti-immigrant agenda that has been promoted by this administration from the beginning.”
Sessions and President Donald Trump have blamed what Trump called the Obama administration’s “weak illegal immigration policies” for MS-13 violence. Defenders of Obama said he focused deportation efforts on violent criminals, including gang members.
“Our community needs healing and an effective solution to the challenges we’re facing in this area,” Castillo said. “Sessions is coming here to further fan the flames and tension. Promoting an anti-immigrant agenda will not solve these issues or help the community in any way, shape or form.”
About 10 Catholic nuns from the Sisters of St. Joseph in Brentwood were at the protest.
Sister Catherine Fitzgibbon said she and the other sisters are at the demonstration in part to represent immigrants in the country illegally who fear participating in such a high-profile protest.
“They’re afraid they’re going to be picked up and be deported,” she said, “I think it’s important to see this is not an immigration issue. It’s a tragedy and an issue of gangs.”
Fitzgibbon said teenagers join gangs because they’re looking for self-acceptance, but anti-illegal immigration crackdowns deter young people from joining programs that would help them resist and avoid gangs. 
“We are showing up to change the narrative,” Sister Rosalie Carven said. “Their narrative is immigrants are takers, not givers, that they don’t contribute to society.”
Around her, demonstrators shouted, “Say it loud, say it clear, immigrants are welcome here” and “Say it loud, say it clear, Sessions you’re not welcome here.”
Sister Jane Reilly said Suffolk County police in the Brentwood area and local residents have slowly been building up trust with each other. She said Sessions and others tying the killings in the area to immigration policies may destroy that fragile trust and deter residents from cooperating with the police.
With Andrew Smith

LIPROT0429

About 100 protest Attorney General Jeff Sessions’ visit

About 100 protest attorney general’s LI visit

Demonstrators picket as Sessions addresses LI law enforcement

Shock and sorrow rippled through Central Islip Thursday as residents and merchants learned that the bodies of four men had been discovered at town park.
Anger was not far behind.
“This is not who we are,” said community activist Nelsena Day, a retired social worker who has lived in Central Islip for decades. “Ninety-five percent of the people who live in Central Islip are good people. Five percent give us a bad name.”
Like neighboring Brentwood, Central Islip has become ground zero in Suffolk County’s battle against MS-13 and other street gangs. Police commissioner Timothy Sini said Thursday that investigators believe the quadruple homicide is gang-related.
Activists say Central Islip, a working-class, heavily Latino community, is paralyzed by fear — of gangs, of police, of immigration officials, of deportation. Few people would agree to talk about the region’s gang issues Thursday and most of those who did agree to talk requested anonymity.
“In Central Islip, everybody is afraid to get involved,” said Raoul Martinez, the owner of Antojito’s Tipicos Restaurant on Wheeler Road. “There are people who take advantage of that to commit crimes.”
Suffolk police and the FBI have done a good job pressuring MS-13 since two Brentwood girls were allegedly killed by members of the gang in September, Day said. Residents need to do their part by working with police and letting MS-13 and other gangs know they are not welcome in Central Islip, she said.
“We can’t go hide behind our locked doors at night anymore,” Day said. “People are afraid of gangs and the sad part is that fear prevents the community from recovering from something like this.”
Sini and other county officials have repeatedly said Suffolk police will not ask crime victims or witnesses about their immigration status. Rev. Christopher Nowak, the pastor of St. John of God Catholic Church, said police officers have spoken at Masses to reiterate that point.
But many residents, especially those who are undocumented, remain fearful of the police. “They are nervous,” Nowak said. “The fear they will be deported.”
President Trump’s anti-immigrant rhetoric during and after the 2016 election campaign made matters worse, Day said. “People are so afraid of deportation they will stand back and not say anything. That is not right.”
Day hopes to organize a Central Islip peace and unity rally in the near future that will embolden residents. 
“The good lord tells us he is with us and he will never forsake us” she said. “But we have to do the work.”
Legis. Tom Cilmi (R-Bay Shore), who emailed Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo’s office Thursday after he heard of the killings to ask for more help with resources to fight violence, said gang warfare is out of control in the community.
“Our children are dying,” Cilmi wrote in his email. “A community is scared and hurting. The men and women of the Suffolk County Police Department are doing their best, but we need more help.”
A representative for Cuomo was not immediately available for comment Thursday night.
Legis. Monica Martinez (D-Brentwood) said despite the MS-13 arrests last month in connection with the girls’ killings, the fight to get rid of gangs continues.
“Yes, there were arrests but we knew this wasn’t the end. We knew we’d have to continue to bring resources in, continue policing the community. I know the police department hasn’t let up on that.”
Martinez, whose district includes the area where the bodies were found, said a constituent came into the office and knew one of the victims as family of a neighbor.
“Everyone’s concerned. A small percentage is really hurting the whole. Those families who are working hard every single day to make ends meet,” she said.
With David Schwartz and Sarah Armaghan

LICOMM0414

Fear, shock, and resolve in Central Islip after 4 killings

Fear, resolve in Central Islip after killings

LICOMM0414_WEB / mg

The brutal killing of four young men found in a Central Islip park Wednesday, with its ominous gang-soaked aura, feels like an installment in a serial drama many Long Islanders simply can’t imagine happening in their backyard. The four men were probably slashed with machetes, and likely for no good reason beyond youth and hate.
Widespread attention to gang violence in Brentwood intensified in September when Kayla Cuevas, 16, and Nisa Mickens, 15, were beaten to death over a dispute involving the street gang MS-13. Soon thereafter, Jose Pena Hernandez, 18, was killed, likely for talking to law enforcement. The ensuing, multi-agency investigation led to indictments for 13 MS-13 members six weeks ago, in those three homicides and four others that were uncovered. 
So now the toll is 11 and the fear creeps further, into Central Islip, and further east to Bellport, where two missing males may be two of the dead. The multi-community nature of the spreading violence may well indicate a battle between MS-13 factions. Law enforcement officials and experts say for MS-13 such killings are less about financial disputes over drug-dealing territories than violence for its own sake. 
This violent wave is mostly related to the recent influx of unaccompanied young men from nations like El Salvador, Guatemala and Honduras, officials say. Some arrive with a callous disregard for the value of life and find MS-13 a welcome support system. 
Suffolk County Police Commissioner Tim Sini called this “a long-term war,” and that’s true, but the immediate response must be to overwhelm: with patrols, investigation, and good intelligence. The perpetrators must pay. The violence must stop.— The editorial board

Opinion

Editorials

VPGANG0414

Pulling out all stops to end violence

Editorial: Pulling out all stops to end violence

LIDEAD0414_WEB

Joie Tyrrell

The South Country school district increased its security presence on Monday, the first day of classes since the bodies of two students were found among those of four young men in a Central Islip park — all believed to be victims of MS-13 gang violence.
The district added two security guards to Bellport High School and two full-time school resource officers from the Suffolk County Police Department, school officials said.
The district also activated a crisis team to help students at the high school, school officials said. Officials said that the district has “increased its security measures.”
The moves come after last week’s suspected gang-related killings of four young men whose bodies were found in the park at Clayton Street and Lowell Avenue. Two of those slain — Justin Llivicura, 16, of East Patchogue, and Jorge Tigre, 18, of Bellport — attended Bellport High, according to relatives.
“We are deeply saddened by the news, and our thoughts and prayers go out to the families,” South Country Superintendent Joseph Giani said Friday.
The district has “planned for student and staff support services for Monday and throughout the week,” he said, adding that those services also will be available in schools that the victims’ siblings attend. It was unclear which other schools are included.
Counselors, psychologists and social workers are included on the school-based crisis team. Bellport High had an enrollment of about 1,300 students in grades nine through 12 in 2015-16, the most recent state figures available.
“I am both proud and confident that our students, staff and school community will demonstrate compassion and the unconditional support needed as a result of this senseless tragedy,” the superintendent said.
Classes in many of Long Island’s 124 systems resumed Monday after public schools were closed last week for spring break.
Several families and residents in Bellport said Friday they were caught off guard by the news that two of the victims had gone to the high school.
The Mann family, who live on the street where Tigre lived, said they had a conversation Friday morning with their daughter, Amber, 16, an 11th-grader. She shared lunch period with Tigre.
“It’s so sad,” said Debra Mann, 59, the teenager’s mother. “I can’t believe it’s been happening in Brentwood and now it came over here, to our own backyard.”
Amber Mann said the presence of MS-13 gang members seems to have grown since she has been in the high school, and she wasn’t aware of any gang prevention programs offered there.
Peter Mann, 69, said he has taken precautions to keep his family safe, such as putting an alarm system in their home. He called the location “a quiet block” and said the family hasn’t had any issues since they began living there several years ago.
“We keep close tabs on her. We trust her,” Peter Mann said of his daughter. “But we’ve been talking about it since this morning and we’ll keep talking to her. These gangs used to be far away from us, but now it’s just right down the street. This hits home and it’s sad.”
Last year, officials in the Brentwood school district adopted security and crisis protocols after four Brentwood High School students were among those killed in slayings that law enforcement officials said were committed by gang members.
School officials there increased their vigilance for suspicious activity. In addition to using metal detectors for random checks of classes, they approached students who were seen wearing bandannas, especially in colors associated with gangs, or flashing hand signs to identify their affiliation.
Those students were told to change their clothing or correct their behavior or were sent home. Counselors also were brought into the district to help students who may have known the victims.
With Scott Eidler

LIBELL0415

Bellport schools take precautions after Central Islip killings

School district takes security precautions after killings

IMGLDY4_WEB

The family of a high school honor student who was among four young men found brutally slain this week in a Central Islip park said Friday the 18-year-old recently had been the target of harassment by the MS-13 gang and feared for his safety.
The revelation came as police released the names of the dead, and publicly drew an even stronger link between the criminal syndicate with ties to El Salvador and a homicidal rampage that has shaken a community already beset with fears about its reach and violence.
“At this time, all indications are that this is the work of MS-13,” Suffolk Police Commissioner Timothy Sini said Friday of an attack authorities previously said was carried out with a “sharp or edged instrument.”
Sini, whose department is jointly investigating the crimes with the FBI, also confirmed a video was part of the probe and urged anyone who believed they had received such a file to contact authorities right away. 
“We are aware of its origins and it’s certainly part of the investigation,” Sini said of the video.
The family of one of the victims, Justin Llivicura, 16, has said his girlfriend received a graphic video file Thursday that depicted dead bodies lying together, including the remains of their loved one. She got the video — which the family shared with police — a day after the discovery of the victims at about 8 p.m. Wednesday near a soccer field in a park at Clayton Street and Lowell Avenue. 
Authorities identified the victims Friday as: Llivicura, of East Patchogue; Jorge Tigre, 18, of Bellport; Michael Lopez Banegas, 20, of Brentwood; and Jefferson Villalobos, 18, of Pompano Beach, Florida.
Tigre’s sister Monica, 20, said Friday that MS-13 had been preying on her brother, a Bellport High School senior who had dreamed of becoming a police officer.
“Almost every day they would flatten his tires. He always had to go get his car fixed because they would always ruin it at school,” she said. “He never wanted to say anything to my mother. He was scared of getting hurt.”
The student’s family said he wasn’t in a gang and was an honor roll student who had tried to distance himself from anyone at school connected to MS-13, of which at least one of his friends was a member.
Tigre’s mother, Bertha Ullaguari, 43, was inconsolable Friday as she mourned her son. Family said he’d been one of six siblings, worked in a restaurant and always had a smile as he helped with chores around the house.
“He was my beautiful boy. Why did they kill him? My god, why?” Ullaguari said. 
Family members of Villalobos and Banegas, who were cousins, also came together Friday to grieve for the young men — who they said had no gang affiliations. 
Villalobos had been visiting Banegas from Florida after arriving on Long Island last Friday with his sister, father and grandmother, said Yensy Fuentes — a cousin of both those victims.
Fuentes, 20, of Florida, said Friday she had seen a video that showed both their bodies, and that Banegas’ head was covered with a plastic bag.
A seconds-long video clip Newsday obtained from relatives of one of the victims appears to show the remains of multiple males, including one with an object near his head that appears consistent with her description.
Fuentes said family last saw the two cousins at 9 p.m. Tuesday, believing they left to play soccer at an indoor facility. Both were natives of Honduras, where their grandparents still live, according to family.
Villalobos’ aunt, Marleni, also from Florida, said Friday that her nephew came to live in the United States three years ago. Playing soccer was his passion, she said through tears.
Sini said Friday authorities are “making real progress in this investigation,” but declined to provide more details. He said police would “devote the necessary resources to solve these brutal crimes.”
“All hands are on deck,” Sini said. He added that police also would enhance patrols in the area and said anyone with information shouldn’t fear approaching authorities because of immigration issues.
“If you come to us as a victim or a witness, we don’t even inquire into your immigration status,” Sini also said at a news conference Friday evening.
One of the leading theories of investigators is that one of the four victims, or a close friend, had been close with MS-13 members and had angered them when he tried to back away, sources familiar with the investigation said Friday. They stressed authorities hadn’t reached any definitive conclusion about the reason for the killings. 
Under the theory, the marked person — whose identity was unclear — was invited to the field and took friends with him for what he believed was some sort of party.
Once there, they were met by a number of MS-13 members who were armed with bats and machetes and pounced on the planned victim and his companions in a frenzy, the sources said. The MS-13 members assumed the others were potential witnesses to the crime or potential defenders of the targeted victim under this working theory of the crime.
Sources familiar with the investigation previously told Newsday the victims’ bodies were mutilated with both blunt and sharpened weapons, presumably bats and machetes.
Some family and friends of the victims paid tribute to them Friday morning by laying crosses and flowers at the park.
“It just gives us peace in our hearts, and makes us feel better,” said Fuentes, the cousin of Banegas and Villalobos.
In Llivicura’s home, his family honored the homicide victim Friday with a display of candles with images of the Virgin of Guadalupe and Jesus, along with a framed photo of him as a 10-year-old boy.
His father, Marcelo Llivicura, said the 16-year-old loved listening to traditional Ecuadorean music and working on his white Scion — still parked in the driveway Friday. 
The man paused as photos of his son, a Bellport High student, and Tigre flashed onto his television screen during a News 12 Long Island report on the murders. 
“There he is,” Llivicura said. “The blue shirt.”
The father said the family often keeps the TV on to see if there are any updates on the slaying case.
Llivicura’s family last saw him Tuesday night, when he said he was going to a party in Manhattan. They reported to police that he was missing on Wednesday evening.
Tigre’s family has said they reported him missing Wednesday afternoon. His brother, William Tigre, 21, previously said he then got a call from a friend at 7:30 that evening saying his brother was hurt and at the park. He later spoke to investigators at the scene.
Authorities are offering a $25,000 “fast cash reward,” to be paid within three days, for information leading to the arrest of the killer or killers.
The FBI has asked anyone with information to call the agency at 631-501-8600.
The discovery of the victims Wednesday comes six weeks after more than a half-dozen members of MS-13 were indicted in the killings of Brentwood teens Kayla Cuevas, 16, and Nisa Mickens, 15, and MS-13 member, Jose Peña-Hernandez, 18.
Sources have said previously that the street gang’s members are under pressure to “put in work,” or kill rivals who belong to other gangs or people believed to have disrespected the gang. 
There also are scores of gang members who have recently come to Long Island, mainly from El Salvador, who have to prove their worth to the syndicate with acts of violence, sources said.
The killings of Cuevas and Mickens and the discovery of several sets of skeletal remains of other young victims, prompted Suffolk police to execute a monthslong sweep that yielded more than 100 arrests.
Sini on Thursday had declared that law enforcement’s efforts locally against gang violence would be “a long-term war.P”

LIDEAD0415

Family: Gang harassed victim found brutally slain in Central Islip

Families mourn 4 found brutally slain in park

Brutal slayings of four young men found in Central Islip investigated

They ranged in age from 16 to 20 — teenagers and young men — their lives ended this week in what police called a single burst of brutality in Central Islip.
The families of two of the dead said they both attended Bellport High School and neither was a gang member. 
Police have not identified the four victims whose bodies were found Wednesday night in a park bounded by Clayton Street and Lowell Avenue. But officials are saying that the manner in which they died — through the use of a sharp-edged instrument — is “consistent” with methods of killing used lately by MS-13.
Relatives of Justin Llivicura, 16, of East Patchogue, and Jorge Tigre, 18, of Bellport, said they reported them missing Wednesday and police launched searches almost immediately. Police soon confirmed their worst fears, relatives said — both were among the four mutilated bodies found in the park at about 8 p.m. Wednesday.
Llivicura, 16, was on his way to a party Tuesday night in Manhattan, according to his father, Marcelo Llivicura, recalling the final time he would ever see his son alive.
“They massacred my boy,” he said Thursday, sobbing as he spoke inside the family home. “It was a trap. There was no party. They wanted to kill him.”
Justin Llivicura’s mother, Blanca Zhicat, said her son had no gang affiliations. He was a jokester at heart who spent most of his spare time listening to music and playing with his dog, Bruno.
But she sensed trouble was afoot in her only son. He had two more years left before graduating from Bellport High but had stopped going to class recently — missing more than 45 days, his mother said.
“He didn’t go to school,” she said. “ . . . I asked him why he didn’t go to school. He said, ‘I don’t like it. I’m not going to finish school because I don’t like it there.’ ”
She pressed on. He resisted.
“I asked him ‘But why? Do you have some sort of problem at school?’ ” she said. “ ‘Is someone after you?’ He said no. He’d say, ‘Mom, please change me to another school.’ I said, ‘Wait until next year and then we’ll find a new school.’ I don’t know why he said that.”
William Tigre, 21, said he last saw his brother, Jorge, Tuesday afternoon.
“He left the house Tuesday at 3 p.m.,” Tigre said Thursday. “But after that, we never heard anything about him.”
He said police probed him for information about his brother.
“They started asking me questions about him,” Tigre said. “They asked me, what type of clothes he was wearing, if he had a tattoo or a scar or something.”
Tigre said his brother was not a gang member.
“He wasn’t involved with that,” Tigre said of his younger brother. “. . . He worked in a restaurant.”

LIVIC0414

Police ID 2 victims of quadruple homicide to relatives, families say

Cops ID 2 victims of quadruple homicide, families say

IMGU136_WEB

Suspected MS-13 gang activity on Long Island

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Felix Pantaleon, of Lindenhurst, gets 4-12 years in prison in Southern State Parkway crash that killed Reynaldo Collado, of West Babylon, in September 2024.

LI driver sentenced in high-speed SSP crash that killed man

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Stuart Cameron, now the chief of the Old Westbury Police Department, said "The Long Watch" began as an attempt to share his experiences during 40-plus years in law enforcement with his children and grandchildren.

'You're watching out over the citizens that live in the area you're responsible for'

They likely belong to an elderly woman who went missing in the area in December, Nassau Police Commissioner Patrick Ryder said. NewsdayTV's Ken Buffa has more.

'The body has not been positively identified'

Ex-NYS court officer Brian Burke accompanied Rex Heuermann to nearly all of his court appearances. NewsdayTV's Andrew Ehinger reports.

'The most disturbing case I ever worked'

By embracing his mother, Joshua Wilck violated a court order for him to stay away from his parents. NewsdayTV's Ken Buffa reports.

Man charged with attacking parents arrested after hugging mother in court

Nassau County police said Nolan Gaugler, 34, was conducting a chemical experiment when the mixture "reacted violently." NewsdayTV's Virginia Huie reports.

'Of course it was dangerous'

A Human Rights Commission finds Suffolk cops failed to use body cameras properly 179 times in 2025-26. Newsday reporter Michael O'Keeffe explains.

'They all agree body cameras are good'

The victim's identity has not yet been released. NewsdayTV's Ken Buffa reports.

Homicide probe launched in Nassau

More than 700 of the automatic license plate readers adorn poles and other structures in Nassau and Suffolk counties pitting security against privacy concerns. NewsdayTV's Shari Einhorn reports.

'Invasion of privacy? That's not cool'

The sentencing brings to an end a 6-year case that began in the early days of the COVID pandemic. NewsdayTV's Shari Einhorn has more.

'I would just like to move on'

Thomas Lobianco, 26, of Lake Ronkonkoma, was arraigned on a 19-count indictment in a Riverhead court room. NewsdayTV's Shari Einhorn has more.

'They're sitting ducks out there.'

Street takeovers this summer on Long Island have led to traffic tickets, impounded vehicles and arrests. Newsday reporter Nicholas Grasso provides insight on this trend.

Different views on LI street takeovers

There was a major police presence at Pearl Court in Sayville on Friday morning as authorities investigated a report of a woman found dead in her home. NewsdayTV's Andrew Ehinger reports.

Homicide detectives at the scene

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Halloween events on LI

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Nassau and Suffolk counties have implemented a combined $57 million in technology upgrades to streamline the voting process.

New voting machines at Long Island polling places

Liberty Water has applied to raise rates in three of the areas it serves on Long Island. NewsdayTV's Andrew Ehinger reports.

Liberty seeks water rate hikes of $21-$28 a month for some Nassau customers

Follow crime and courts news in Nassau and Suffolk, including incidents reported in your neighborhood, trial coverage, sentencings and more.

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