Teens charged with hate-motivated murder in Woodhaven
On Thursday, the Attorney of Queens increased the charges on the six teenagers by including the murder as a hate crime. They miss-judged and perceived an 18-year aged male to be gay and made him die earlier in the year.
On 13th of March, outdoors of the Woodhaven house party, the six teenagers brutally used a pipe, cane and a stick to injure Anthony Collao very intensely that he was moved to the hospital but couldn’t survive. The boys then stole Collao’s shoes, and one of them wore the baseball hat of Bethpage teen Atlanta Braves just after the incident took place, as mentioned by the DA. City Officials reported that another one was trying to be a swagger by putting the information on Facebook.
The current investigations by the office’s NYC Police Department and Hates Crimes Bureau made an impact, increasing the charges on the accused to reflect out the evidence from eyewitnesses, the DA Richard Brown said. The defendants are now accused of being motivated by hate in this incident of the unprovoked and brutal attack and theft.
The charged ones are Alex Velez of 90-17 Jamaica Avenue, Christopher Lozada of 452 Onderdonk Avenue, Nolis Ogando (aged 18) of 777 Seneca Avenue and Calvin Pietriof 91-10 77th Street each of them from Woodhaven, Luis Tabales (aged 16) of 90-17 Jamaica Avenue in Richmond Hill and Jonathan Echevarria (aged 16) of 1050 Greene Avenue from Brooklyn.
The 21-count indictment also comprised of Manslaughter, Assault and Robbery as the part of hate crimes, to which defendants were charged.
If proved in trials, the boys would have to experience 20 years to life imprisonment.
In the evening, on the incident day, Collao was with her girlfriend and attending a house celebration at 87-19 90th Street in Woodhaven. When those six teenagers approached the house at around 1 in the afternoon and declined to give the $7 pay for cover, they started to spray anti-gay slurs at the attendees, many of whom were gay. Police stated.
The DA said, The attackers then secretly followed Collao and beat him brutally before clearing the scene.
Brown stated in the statement that Hate Crimes, no matter the reason be sexual orientation, gender, religion or ethnicity, will not be tolerated at all in Queens County, the area which is proudly known as the most diverse in the nation. If the practice happens, everyone accused will be condemned in the strongest terms and the responsible ones will be surely brought to justice for their actions.
