[A] friend of the 15-year-old suspect’s family, Noe Palacios, said that the boy had been enticed by the gang culture in the neighborhood, and that a 16-year-old cousin who he spends a lot of time with was in a local gang.
Another friend of the young suspect , a 13-year-old girl, who said she attended the Mount Vernon School with him, said: “He was a cool guy, but he was in a gang. He used to fight a lot.”
Another man, Halsted Diamond, 23, a cook at a bar, said that the youth had started hanging out with the wrong crowd, and smoking and drinking. “He was a skinny and fragile guy trying to be a big man,” he said.
Man and Youth Held in Killings of 3 in Newark
By KAREEM FAHIM and ANDREW JACOBS
NEWARK, Aug. 9 — In a day of dramatic turns that included the surrender of one suspect to the mayor himself, the authorities announced on Thursday that a 15-year-old youth and a 28-year-old construction worker had been arrested in the murder of three young people and the wounding of a fourth in an episode that has unsettled this crime-hardened city.
At least three other suspects — two of whom were described as also being juveniles — were still being sought, the authorities said, including one juvenile who is possibly a relative of the 15-year-old suspect.
The four victims, two of them college students and two who were scheduled to begin in the fall, were shot on Saturday night in the playground of the Mount Vernon elementary school,where they had been listening to music. The authorities say robbery appeared to be the motive.
Mayor Cory A. Booker, who announced the arrests in news conferences barely an hour apart, described the 28-year-old, Jose Carranza, as “the principal suspect,” although officials said they had not yet worked out the relationship between the suspects.
At first glance, the two men held in the killings would seem to be odd collaborators. One was described as a fragile teenager who played basketball and once attended the very school where the shooting took place, and the other, by many accounts, was a troubled man with a steadily lengthening criminal record.
Mr. Booker said the 15-year-old, from Newark, was arrested late on Wednesday night.
Mr. Carranza, of nearby Orange, surrendered early Thursday afternoon, but only after his lawyer called a mayoral aide — while Mr. Booker and others were holding a news conference about the 15-year-old’s arrest — to alert them that Mr. Carranza wanted to give himself up to the mayor at a police station. The news conference was quickly ended, and, without telling reporters, Mr. Booker rushed to the police station on Franklin Street and waited for Mr. Carranza and his lawyer.
Delicious
Digg
Reddit
Newsvine
Furl
Google
Yahoo
I thought the title fit - MAN and Youth
The ages disturbed me.
Thanks for telling me to read the article. Um,he's accused of RAPING AND SODOMIZING A CHILD AND HE'S OUT ON BAIL?
WTF
WTF
WTF
Will the racial angle be played up or not? What's your guess?
Will the racial angle be
It should not. I think you have to see if Carranza was a Pied Piper-type, and making an issue of his being Latino would fog things.
I want them all caught but I want to understand this kid for some reason. Maybe because from this it seems he's right on the edge of going personally wrong (as opposed to being caught up in a fucked up situation, which he is).
What Hit Me The Hardest About The Article...
...was the mother of two of the victims asking that prayers be offered for her daughter and saying that she was praying herself for the 15 year-old who has been arrested in connection with this crime. This point may seem trivial but what moved me was the depth of humanity and compassion that African Americans can continue to offer to this country and this world despite our sufferings as individuals and as a people.
That's not a trivial point.
That's not a trivial point.
It's not a trivial point, and I was struck by it too
She had a generous spirit. I don't think I'd have that kind of spirit if my child was in the hospital.
Um, ONE MILLION DOLLAR BAIL?
Why not REMAND? Why does he get bail AT ALL?
Am I wrong for thinking this?
He's 31. WTF is he doing around 15, 16 year olds?
I'm still in shock that he was out on bail IN THE FIRST PLACE.
He just returned from Nicaragua..um, doesn't that smelll FLIGHT RISK? So, AGAIN, I ask..
WHY WAS BAIL EVEN OFFERED?
Jose Carranza
While it is true that Mr. Carranza was out on bail after being charged on two recent occasions for repeatedly sexually assaulting a child and, later, for assault and battery on two men the only connection that the police have revealed regarding Carranza's involvement with the murders were his fingerprints on a beer bottle found near the scene of the crime. We really don't know at this point what the extent of his involvment was or if he was even involved in the shootings of those four young people. In addition, CNN has reported that he is in this country illegally (this will probably get the juices of the natavists surging). In any case, Carranza is in a world of trouble. I can't imagine any bali bond firm putting up the cash for him and I doubt if his family has sufficient collateral to cover the bond.
rikyrah, where are you
rikyrah, where are you getting that he's 31 years old?
As I think about it, I realize I'm not going to find out about this kid any more than I found out about the one who was half of the D.C Sniper. I almost hope one of the others they need to catch is Black. If they're all Latino it could get stupid.
I thought about that too. Remembering, actually. There's always a place when the men hang out and if you hang there you're a man too. A corner, a barber shop, the stone chess table in the park, basketball court. Broad range of ages there, though the court tends to screen out old heads.
There's no signal or invitation, you just wind up there with a beer in your hand. Which is why no one would have thought it strange for quite a while. Plus in some neighborhoods the gang headquarters is one of those places.
I was waiting for someone to say that he was illegal
that's just the cherry on this Crime Sundae.
Ok, so he's 28...AS IF that makes my question any different?
WTF is a 28 year old doing around 15 and 16 year olds?
In my world, they simply do not ' socialize' with one another.
In my world, they simply do
In mine they do sometimes.
You really have to remember I was born pretty far from middle class status. I read Jack and Jill Politics every day but am NOT qualified to post there.
My Two Cents
I wouldn't call it socializing but back in the day adolescents who knew how to be cool and didn't run off at the mouth, i.e., knew their place, were allowed to hang out with older guys on the corner. The important thing, as I recall, was that you had to be respectful and not cause any heat or trouble to come down on anybody. You had to know your place, though. You were there to listen, not teach.
Yeah, that's what it was
Yeah, that's what it was like. But we are old, PT. I honestly see less of that, but that could easily be because I am middle class now, mentally speaking. You don't make that transition with all of your relationships intact, no matter how hard you try. You be in different places, see less and less of folks and more of others. The population has changed around the places I hung out.
I think college is the equivalent middle class space, but that's off the top of my head.
Yes, P6, You're Right
The guys who let my friends and me hang out around them would have never allowed us to do anything stupid in their presence. The old men and guys I knew from John Henry McGary's pool hall in Double Rock (within walking distance of Candlestick Park) are all gone now. All of them. And in the cases where they haven't passed on my life has changed so much that I would never run into them again. I hear stories - good and bad - about them but the intersections where our lives once crossed have been paved over. I miss all of them, though. I always will.