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Police arrest suspect in murder, dismemberment of gay Puerto Rican teen
November 17th, 2009
- Jorge Steven Lopez (Image: Primera Hora)
Puerto Rican police have arrested a suspect in the murder of a gay teenager whose body was found decapitated and partially burned Friday in the southern town of Cayey, The Associated Press reports today.
Authorities are looking into whether Jorge Steven Lopez Mercado, 19, was targeted because he was gay, and the case has sent shockwaves across Puerto Rico’s LGBT community.
The newspaper Primera Hora is reporting that the suspect was identified after extensive interviews with Mercado’s friends in the town of Caguas, where Mercado was living. The suspect, a 28-year-old whose identity hasn’t been released, reportedly offered Mercado money for sex.
The Puerto Rico Police Department has removed Investigator Angel Rodriguez from the case after Rodriguez made comments suggesting that Lopez was to blame for his own death, according to Edge.
“When these type of people get into this and go out into the streets like this, they know this can happen to them,” Rodriguez reportedly said in a statement to local media outlets.
Puerto Rico Para Tod@s, the LGBT advocacy group, is calling for Rodriguez to be disciplined for the comment. The group is also calling on police to investigate the case as an anti-gay hate crime. Although Puerto Rico added sexual orientation to its hate crimes statute in 2002, Para Tod@s says the statute hasn’t been used to prosecute anti-gay violence. The FBI has announced it will take jurisdiction over the case if it’s determined that Lopez was killed because he was gay.
Lopez’s body was found after his friends reported that he failed to meet them as planned at a popular gay club in the Santurce neighborhood of San Juan. Authorities haven’t identified the suspect because he hasn’t been formally charged.
LGBT groups plan several vigils as well as a protest outside the U.S. territory’s Capitol.
Tags: hate crimes, Jorge Steven Lopez, Puerto Rico, Puerto Rico Para Tod@s
November 17th, 2009 at 1:04 pm
[...] Police say the suspect after what they said was “extensive questioning” of Mecado’s friends, according to a report in the newspaper Primera Hora, partially translated by Dallas Voice. [...]
November 17th, 2009 at 1:17 pm
Here is a link to an article with more information. Murderer is claiming Gay panic defense.
November 17th, 2009 at 1:20 pm
Carl: You forgot the link
November 17th, 2009 at 1:38 pm
Tammye, it keeps leaving it off for some reason. I will email it to you.
December 3rd, 2009 at 3:17 am
I hope that Mercado’s murderer is brought to justice, and, if possible, executed. I very, very rarely believe that execution is a just means of punishment; I do not normally endorse capital punishment. But when children are raped, women violated, and people tortured, I think that lethal injection (insofar as an injection of potassium to the heart doesn’t cause panic) is just.