The police stated they had classified the fatalities as a dislike crime following remains of two women comprise found in a defectively burned car the other day.

Weekly following the systems of two transgender people are within a poorly burned auto in Puerto Rico, the police mentioned Thursday that they had arrested two boys in connection with the killings and had transformed all of them to the F.B.I.

The men, Juan Carlos Pagan Bonilla, 21, and Sean Diaz de Leon, 19, are used into custody on Wednesday but I have perhaps not become recharged, relating to Capt. Teddy Morales, the main of unlawful research for your authorities in Humacao, on Puerto Rico’s east coastline, in which the women’s remains comprise available on April 22.

The guy mentioned the F.B.I. have bought out the situation and got exploring Mr. Pagan Bonilla and Mr. Diaz de Leon for possible civil rights violations.

“We are classifying it a hate crime simply because they happened to be socializing making use of sufferers, and when they discovered they certainly were transgender females, they chose to eliminate all of them,” Captain Morales said on Thursday.

Law enforcement stated these were waiting around for autopsy results to decide how the women have been killed. Activists have actually identified the women as Layla HaywardCA escort Pelaez, 21, and Serena Angelique Velazquez, 32, two pals exactly who lived in new york. Her stays are discovered after individuals labeled as 911 to document a burned vehicles under a bridge on a desolate roadway in Humacao, right before 5 a.m. on April 22, master Morales mentioned.

Mr. Pagan Bonilla and Mr. Diaz de Leon was basically socializing with Ms. Velazquez and Ms. Pelaez on the night before they certainly were murdered and had been recorded on a single of this women’s social media marketing accounts, Captain Morales mentioned.

The guy stated law enforcement got in addition fastened Mr. Pagan Bonilla and Mr. Diaz de Leon toward killings through surveillance camera video footage and “scientific proof,” which he dropped to detail. Mr. Pagan Bonilla admitted to playing the killings, and Mr. Diaz de Leon switched himself in, he stated.

Limary Cruz-Rubio, a spokeswoman for F.B.I.’s San Juan area office, dropped to discuss the arrests but said the bureau regularly collaborates with local, county and federal firms.

“The Bureau try and will always be into unlawful behavior that may drop within national legislation,” she stated. “However, all of our coverage try we do not verify or deny the presence of investigations, to protect the ethics of every feasible investigative energy.”

Mr. Pagan Bonilla and Mr. Diaz de Leon could not instantly end up being hit for touch upon Thursday nights, and it wasn’t right away clear if they had attorneys.

If the men are billed, it may signify a switching point in the maneuvering of crimes against L.G.B.T.Q. people in Puerto Rico, with a disturbing reputation of violence against homosexual and transgender folk, activists said.

Ms. Velazquez and Ms. Pelaez comprise the 3rd and last transgender group murdered in Puerto Rico in the past 2 months, activists said. They were also thought to be the 7th and eighth transgender or gender-nonconforming men and women to being murdered in the United States this year, according to the people liberties promotion.

In the past 15 months, 10 L.G.B.T.Q. men and women have come slain in Puerto Rico, based on Pedro Julio Serrano, a gay legal rights activist. Just about three on the fatalities remain unsolved, the guy stated.

“These arrests are one step within the right way, but these murders need to be prosecuted as detest crimes,” Mr. Serrano stated. “We desire the government to complete the investigations when you look at the other seven murders of L.G.B.T.Q. folk on the isle and serve justice for several of these.”

Ms. Velazquez stayed in Queens and Ms. Pelaez from inside the Bronx. Both got not too long ago journeyed to Puerto Rico, and so they are about to travel back again to New York later on this month, relating to family relations and activists.

Luz Melendez, 29, Ms. Pelaez’s cousin, stated Mr. Pagan Bonilla and Mr. Diaz de Leon happened to be detained after a regional radio facility uploaded graphics of these on Twitter and other people started initially to call the place to determine them.

“We tend to be very appreciative regarding the operate that authorities and also the community place in locate which did this,” she stated on Thursday.

She mentioned the photographs came from two clips that Ms. Pelaez have posted on her Snapchat and fb profile, which revealed her and Ms. Velazquez interacting with Mr. Pagan Bonilla and Mr. Diaz de Leon.

“I noticed the video, also it appeared like these were spending some time together as company,” she said. “It appeared normal. There seemed to be audio playing into the credentials. Everyone Else seemed okay.”

She mentioned the authorities have informed her parents just your guys had been in national guardianship.

The killings arrived four weeks after Yampi Mendez Arocho, a 19-year-old transgender guy, ended up being murdered in Moca, P.R., based on the individual legal rights venture.

In March, Alexa Negron Luciano, a well-known figure on Puerto Rico social media marketing who was simply transgender and homeless, is shot to passing after a McDonald’s client reported that Ms. Negron got spied on her behalf into the women’s space.

Ms. Negron’s final times — framed within the headlights of an automible amid a cackle of fun — happened to be uploaded on social media marketing, an undeniable fact that activists stated underscored the impunity homophobic attackers become when committing this type of crimes.