The authorities mentioned they’d categorized the fatalities as a detest criminal activity following remains of two women happened to be within a terribly burned vehicle the other day.
Weekly after the system of two transgender girls are present a terribly burned auto in Puerto Rico, the police mentioned Thursday they have arrested two men in connection with the killings along with turned all of them up to the F.B.I.
The boys, Juan Carlos Pagan Bonilla, 21, and Sean Diaz de Leon, 19, are used into guardianship on Wednesday but I have maybe not come energized, per Capt. Teddy Morales, the chief of violent investigations when it comes down to police in Humacao, on Puerto Rico’s eastern shore, where women’s remains comprise entirely on April 22.
He said the F.B.I. got absorbed your situation and got examining Mr. Pagan Bonilla and Mr. Diaz de Leon for possible civil-rights violations.
“We are classifying it as a detest criminal activity since they comprise socializing with the sufferers, and once they realized these people were transgender women, they made a decision to eliminate them,” chief Morales stated on Thursday.
Law enforcement stated they were looking forward to autopsy brings about regulate how the women was basically slain. Activists bring identified the ladies as Layla Pelaez, 21, and Serena Angelique Velazquez, 32, two buddies whom stayed in New York City. Their own remains had been discover after a person labeled as 911 to submit a burned vehicles under a bridge on a desolate roadway in Humacao, prior to 5 a.m. on April 22, Captain Morales said.
Mr. Pagan Bonilla and Mr. Diaz de Leon was socializing with Ms. Velazquez and Ms. Pelaez regarding night before they certainly were slain and were recorded on a single of women’s social media accounts, head Morales said.
The guy stated the authorities got in addition fastened Mr. Pagan Bonilla and Mr. Diaz de Leon for the killings through surveillance camera footage and “scientific research,” that he dropped to detail. Mr. Pagan Bonilla admitted to taking part in the killings, and Mr. Diaz de Leon turned themselves in, he stated.
Limary Cruz-Rubio, a spokeswoman when it comes to F.B.I.’s San Juan field workplace, dropped to talk about the arrests but said the agency routinely collaborates with neighborhood, condition and federal firms.
“The Bureau are and certainly will continually be enthusiastic about criminal run that could drop within federal jurisdiction,” she mentioned. “However, our very own plan try we do not confirm or refuse the existence of research, to protect the stability of every feasible investigative energy.”
Mr. Pagan Bonilla and Mr. Diaz de Leon would never straight away end up being achieved for comment on Thursday nights, also it was not straight away obvious as long as they got attorneys.
If the men are charged, it could portray a flipping reason for the management of criminal activities against L.G.B.T.Q. folks in Puerto Rico, with a disturbing history of violence against homosexual and transgender men, activists stated.
Ms. Velazquez and Ms. Pelaez happened to be the next and last transgender men killed in Puerto Rico within the last few two months, activists said. These people were additionally thought to be the 7th and 8th transgender or gender-nonconforming men and women to being murdered in america this current year, based on the individual legal rights Campaign.
In past times 15 months, 10 L.G.B.T.Q. people have been killed in Puerto Rico, in accordance with Pedro Julio Serrano, a gay liberties activist. Just about three of this fatalities continue to be unresolved, the guy mentioned.
“These arrests include one step inside proper movement, but these murders have to be prosecuted as detest crimes,” Mr. Serrano said. “We desire the federal government in order to complete the investigations in additional seven murders of L.G.B.T.Q. someone regarding the area and offer justice regarding of those.”
Ms. Velazquez lived-in Queens and Ms. Pelaez within the Bronx. Both have not too long ago moved to Puerto Rico, and they are planning to travel back to ny afterwards this period, in accordance with household members and activists.
Luz Melendez, 29, Ms. Pelaez’s relative, stated Mr. Pagan Bonilla and Mr. Diaz de Leon are detained after a regional broadcast facility published photographs ones on myspace and people began to call the station to identify all of them.
“We were awesome appreciative associated 
with perform that the authorities additionally the area devote to track down which performed this,” she said on Thursday.
She stated the photographs originated two clips that Ms. Pelaez have posted on her Snapchat and Facebook profile, which revealed the girl and Ms. Velazquez socializing with Mr. Pagan Bonilla and Mr. Diaz de Leon.
“I watched the video clips, and it seemed like they were hanging out together as company,” she said. “It seemed normal. There is songs playing in the credentials. Every Person felt great.”
She mentioned the police had informed her families merely the men happened to be in national custody.
The killings arrived four weeks after Yampi Mendez Arocho, a 19-year-old transgender man, is killed in Moca, P.R., according to research by the individual legal rights strategy.
In March, Alexa Negron Luciano, a popular figure on Puerto Rico social networking who had been transgender and homeless, was recorded to demise after a McDonald’s consumer reported that Ms. Negron had spied on her behalf into the women’s place.
Ms. Negron’s final minutes — framed in the headlights of a vehicle amid a cackle of fun — comprise uploaded on social media marketing, a fact that activists stated underscored the impunity homophobic attackers become when committing this type of crimes.