MS-13 Gang Members Arrested For Attempted Kidnap, Murder Of Long Island Teenager

Three known MS-13 gang members and two of their associates were arrested while trying to abduct a random 16-year-old boy in Brentwood, New York on Wednesday, Suffolk County police said.

Suffolk County Police Commissioner Timothy Sini in a press conference Thursday announced that five suspects were arrested, including a 17-year-old girl, four of whom were Brentwood High School students. Three in the group were members of the infamous MS-13 criminal gang and two were said to be their associates.

CBS affiliate WCBS-TV reported that the victim was targeted near Brentwood High School. They then demanded that the teen get in the car but seen by undercover officers and later caught and placed under arrest at gunpoint.

The police also reportedly found evidence that suspects had planned to kill the teen. “Those five individuals were attempting — intending — to abduct that boy and kill him,” Sini said, according to New York Daily News. “We do believe they were looking to elevate their status in the MS-13 gang by carrying out that murder.”

Sini said the detectives were in the area because residents had reported seeing people going around in a vehicle and harassing Hispanic boys near the high school Tuesday morning with the possible intent to kidnap them.

A couple of the boys who were being harassed were hit by the gang members with baseball bats — one was hit in the arm and one in the leg. A third boy was also targeted in the span of two hours. However, according to ABC affiliate KABC-TV, they did not suffer any serious injuries. The police believed that the five suspects were responsible for the attacks on Tuesday as well, Sini stated. The undercover police officers were at the scene when they saw the group of men who matched the description of the suspects.

KABC-TV reported that the five suspects were identified as Jorge Bermudez Cedillos, 18, Oscar Fuentes, 18, Vidal Contrera-Ortiz, 18, Miguel Rivera, 20, and a 17-year-old girl. Cedillos, Fuentes and the girl were unaccompanied minors from El Salvador, while Contrera-Ortiz and Rivera entered the U.S. illegally from El Salvador.

“Based on the evidence they were able to collect, we were able to charge all five of the individuals at the scene with conspiracy in the second degree. So essentially, a murder conspiracy,” Sini said Thursday.

MS-13, or the Mara Salvatrucha, the notorious street gang with members all across the U.S. was believed to have emerged in Los Angeles in the 1980s. The group was also linked to many murders and crimes in Long Island over the years, NY Daily News said, including six murders in Nassau County and 20 killings in Suffolk County since 2016.

"We've employed a multi-pronged strategy to eradicate MS-13 from Suffolk County, and part of that is working with community members to identify known gang members and to target them for arrest and advanced prosecution. That partnership is what made this case a success and the Suffolk County Police Department will continue to do everything in our power to keep our communities safe,” a Facebook post by the police department quoted Sini as saying.