California parents tie up, assault and racially abuse teenage black boy after finding him hiding in their daughter's closet
A 15-year-old girl's parents in California have been arrested on hate crime charges after they allegedly kidnapped, assaulted, and tied a teenage black boy with rope, and hurled racial slurs at him. The incident reportedly occurred after they found the 17-year-old boy in their girl's bedroom.
According to San Bruno Police, the girl's biological father, identified as 49-year-old Luisandor Suarez, her mother, 46-year-old Haydee Arguello, and her stepfather, 46-year-old Wilfredo Amaya, all assaulted and threatened to kill the 17-year-old boy who had not been identified. Reports state that while the boy is of African-American descent, the girl's family is of Hispanic descent.
The incident, which allegedly occurred on Thursday, August 22, at 2:30 am, lasted for nearly 30 minutes and involved a deadly weapon.
San Bruno Police Department Lieutenant Ryan Johansen, in a Facebook post, said that the teen girl's adult family members restrained the victim with a rope, held him against his will, assaulted him multiple times and even threatened to kill him.
Authorities said that the boy ran away after he was released and alerted the authorities. He was reportedly treated at a local hospital for non-life threatening injuries.
Johansen said that an investigation into a possible hate crime was launched after the boy reported that Suarez, Arguello and Amaya "yelled at him using multiple racial slurs and he believed his race to be a motivating factor in the attack."
The girl's older sisters, however, have disputed the boy's claims of their parents attacking him for racial reasons. The sisters claimed that the incident was an issue of self-defense, according to ABC 7.
"They were so scared because they found someone in the closet," the girl's sister Belkys Gomez told the outlet. "They jumped because everyone was sleeping and this guy started kicking my step-father and trying to kill him."
Meanwhile, the other sister, Katherine Gomez, claimed that the boy punched her mother and added that her stepfather "of course, is not going to let anyone hit his wife."
Katherine said that her parents then "tried to stop him and he was acting very violent so they grabbed a rope to try to tie him down and ask him why he was at the house." The sisters also added that their parents did not hurt the boy and that the accusations against them of a hate crime are "not true at all."
The family's neighbors, however, told the outlet that they heard a boy screaming in pain at the time the incident occurred.
The Police Department Lieutenant told the San Francisco Chronicle while talking about the teens involved in the incident said: "Physically, I think they will be perfectly fine [but] emotionally, I think there are a lot of scars."
Reports state that the girl is currently in custody of Child Protective Services while Suarez, Arguello, and Amaya have been arrested and charged with committing a hate crime, kidnapping, assault with a deadly weapon and criminal threats.