Are High Profile Victims More Likely to Receive Justice?

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Brian Lehrer: Brian Lehrer on WNYC. After UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson was murdered on December 4th and the NYPD and others launched the massive manhunt for the killer. Some people ask the question why a reward and so many law enforcement resources to catch this killer of this prominent person, but not in the cases of murdered New Yorkers who are not CEOs or otherwise people of privilege.

One comparison case jumped out as an example that has made the news and that Mayor Adams was asked about at a press conference. It's the killing of 17-year-old Yeremi Colina the day after the CEO killing, also in a part of Manhattan where murder is very unusual, the Financial District, and also a case where the killer or killers have not been apprehended. Like with the initial concern about the murder of Brian Thompson, the killer or killers here could strike again.

Yeremi Colina wasn't a CEO. He was a teenager who came from Venezuela last year as part of the wave of people from there seeking political asylum, and to critics of the system, somehow his life was considered less important, unfairly so. To this day, almost two weeks later, our newsroom has been reporting on the life and death of Yeremi Colina and his killer or killers on the loose. WNYC and Gothamist's Brittany Kriegstein joins us now. Her reporting focuses mostly on crime and gun violence in the city. Brittany, thanks for coming on the show today. Hi.

Brittany Kriegstein: Hi, Brian. Thanks so much for having me.

Brian Lehrer: Listeners, anything you want to say or ask, or maybe you have any tips in this case. Who knows? 212-433-WNYC, 212-433-9692. Call or text. Can we first talk, Brittany, about who Yeremi Colina was before we talk about the killing and the investigation into it? Can you tell us more about when and how his family came from Venezuela to New York City?

Brittany Kriegstein: Sure. Yeremi was the oldest of six siblings. His mom actually called him the leader of their family pack. He was the strength and the glue of the family, she says. They're all from Venezuela. He was a normal kid here in New York City playing soccer, going to school. He had a girlfriend. He had friends at other shelters that he'd met in school, and his family actually arrived in America on December 4th of 2023. That's about a year and a day, coincidentally, before he was killed here in the city on a street two weeks ago.

They were looking for opportunities here in America. His mom, Beritza, said they had a tough relationship with their father, so she decided to take all the kids on her own, pregnant at the time with her last child, and make a very arduous journey here to America. Yeremi was a key part of, she says, the reason that they were able to get here. He actually saved his nine-year-old brother from drowning in one of the rivers. She said he was just a crucial part of that entire journey.

Brian Lehrer: They were fleeing threats within the household more than threats from the government of Venezuela or other kind of social conditions there?

Brittany Kriegstein: I think it was a mix of everything. We didn't get into that too much in our interview, but the way that Beritza was talking about it seemed like a pretty traumatic situation. I think it would be a very traumatic situation to bring five kids on the road, one on the way to flee to a country that they'd never been to. They had no family connections here, like so many migrants in the same wave of people who've come over the last year. They feel like there are so many more opportunities here, and so they hit the road and they came.

Brian Lehrer: They were among those bused to New York from Texas, according to your article. Do you know if they were trying to get to this city in the first place or if Governor Abbott of Texas shipped them here, as we hear he did with many people, many families?

Brittany Kriegstein: I think they were shipped here. I think they arrived without really knowing where they were going to end up. I think they were just so relieved to finally be on American soil, and they did end up here in New York. I think they maybe aren't quite sure of all of the political elements that went into bringing them here, but they did arrive by bus and they didn't have family connections here, which is very similar to many other migrants who are bussed as part of that Abbott program.

Brian Lehrer: Without those connections, they initially lived in a migrant shelter or in a couple of rooms, as you note, at the Roosevelt Hotel intake center. Where were they living this month before Yeremi was killed?

Brittany Kriegstein: That's right. They were actually still living at the Roosevelt Hotel, which is rare. Most migrants have to cycle in and out of these shelters as their stays expire, but it's possible that because Yeremi's family was so large, they actually had two rooms at the hotel that they were allowed to stay for more time, which of course was helpful stability for all the children.

Brian Lehrer: How was Yeremi Colina killed? Tell us what police or the family say they do know about the night of December 5th.

Brittany Kriegstein: Sure. Yeremi had gone downtown to meet a friend who lives in a shelter near the Fulton Street subway station in FiDi. His mom told me this aligns with what police have said about where he was at the time. It seems that Yeremi and his 18-year-old friend ran into three other people. They appear to be men in their 20s. Police say that these men were maybe making gang signs at the teens. Now, for some reason, that prompted Yeremi and his friend to go over to them and start some kind of a verbal altercation.

It's unclear exactly what was said in that altercation. There were comments about one of them asking Yeremi and his friend if they spoke English, and they said no. Police and the mayor have actually backtracked, saying that was not really the case, that they were arguing over something else. Yeremi apparently had some sort of a stick in his hand maybe that his mom said he'd been playing around with before this all went down, but either way, these two groups get into an argument and then they start a fistfight.

This is around 7:30 PM on John Street, and they start battling it out. As things progress, Yeremi is trying to defend himself and his friend. One of the other assailants takes out a knife and stabs Yeremi and his friend. His friend was stabbed in the arm and survived, and Yeremi was stabbed right in the chest and he died just moments later.

Brian Lehrer: These initial reports that this might have been a hate crime, following someone asking Yeremi if he spoke English. You reported that this is not being considered a hate crime by the city. The mayor said that question about speaking English may not have actually been asked. That's one of the reasons that there was such public interest in this case and a comparison with the Brian Thompson case in terms of law enforcement resources being devoted to it. What can you tell us about what was initially thought to possibly be the context here and how firmly that's been put to rest?

Brittany Kriegstein: Initially, like I said, that comment asking those teens if they spoke English, the answer would presumably have been no. We know that they're migrants from Venezuela, both of them. People thought maybe these are American citizens who really have something out for migrants, and so they decided to fight with them and ultimately stab them. It really does not seem like that's the case. It seems like a much more spontaneous fight between two groups of teens. That then led law enforcement down a different path and reports began to surface that this was some sort of a gang-related argument.

As I mentioned, those three men in their 20s, the assailants, allegedly were flashing some sort of gang signs that prompted the teens to go over to them. Law enforcement officials were exploring whether Yeremi and his friend might be related to the Tren de Aragua gang, which has been discussed a lot by law enforcement officials as having roots in some of the hotels around the city as migrants come specifically from Venezuela.

That became more of the story, that this was some kind of a gang fight, potentially, although law enforcement sources weren't completely sure about that either. It really does not appear at this point to be a hate crime as far as all of the surveillance video and everything else suggests.

Brian Lehrer: The gang theory, which is also being reported on, has also not been confirmed. I know in your article, Beritza, Yeremi's mom, says, "No, he was not in a gang." There are certain conclusions that people come to when they think it's a hate crime. There are certain conclusions that people come to about the victim when they think it might be gang-related. That hasn't been confirmed either, is what I think I hear you telling me.

Brittany Kriegstein: Exactly. Of course, Beritza was devastated and really angry to hear that her son had been looped in with this gang. She literally said in Spanish, she said, "I don't understand why police are so obsessed with this gang. I've never met anybody in this gang at my hotel." She was really, really devastated about that. Yeremi's friends were too. I actually messaged with several of them who said, "No, this is not a kid who's involved in a gang."

I pressed law enforcement officials on it actually earlier this week, and they said that they were exploring that angle because of the gang signs that were flashed by the assailants, but they had no proof so far to suggest Yeremi or his friend were in Tren de Aragua. It's just one theory an official told me they're looking at, but it's not the theory. They're open to other factors here in this case and open to seeing how that continues to develop.

Brian Lehrer: Is part of this story and part of the reason that the mayor was asked to compare the two cases and the police resources being devoted at first, before they caught Luigi Mangione, to the search for the killer of Brian Thompson and the search for the killers here as part of the story that even if it was not a hate crime, and even if it turns out ultimately to be gang-related, this is an unsolved murder with the killer or killers on the loose, and that's where the comparison with how police treated the Brian Thompson murder as an all-hands-on-deck emergency compared to the Yeremi Colina murder come in?

Brittany Kriegstein: I think it's really hard to compare the two in some ways. Of course, they both happened in areas where murders are quite rare, and they happened right around the same time. In the Thompson murder case, this was obviously a planned and targeted attack, as we know, and in Yeremi's case, it was more of a spontaneous fight between two groups of young people. That's where the comparisons end.

The NYPD has told me whenever I've asked about this case that they are committed to putting equal resources out for every single homicide and every single major crime that goes on in the city. Personally, as somebody who covers a lot of crime and is at a lot of crime scenes, I do see detectives canvassing very thoroughly, no matter who is involved. Interestingly, Beritza told me that she is really satisfied with the response from detectives. They've been communicative, and one detective even told her, "I don't care who your son was--"

Let's say he was a gang member, that police had maybe suggested he could be. "I don't care who your son was. I'm going to investigate this case just as I would any other." That really had an impact on her. While, of course, we didn't see hundreds of officers fanning out around the city to look for Yeremi's killers, they did put out surveillance pictures quite quickly, and they say that they're doing everything they can to find these young people.

What's difficult, of course, is that the media also, we play a role here in amplifying some of these cases over others. We put more resources into some cases over others. The police officials were saying to me that that plays a part in this. Obviously, there were millions of people looking out for Luigi Mangione, but there are not millions of people looking out for these young people who allegedly attacked Yeremi and his friend. That's an interesting thing to think about as well as members of the press.

Brian Lehrer: I understand, of course, what you're saying about the differences. One killing was in a dispute of some kind, apparently, as most murders are between people who know each other. The other was intended to change politics, change the social order in the country, change healthcare in the United States. They're different in at least those respects. What is the status of the investigation? This killer or these killers are still on the loose. What can police say about what they know?

Brittany Kriegstein: They say that they know quite a bit. They have really clear images and videos that they've put out. They release for every crime any pictures or videos they have of suspects. This happens almost every day. We get reports and we get photos and videos as members of the press that it's up to us to put out there, but from what I've heard, that's all that they have. They have not yet identified these suspected attackers. They haven't said what their motives could have been. There still are a lot of unknowns here. Yeremi's family, they're planning his funeral and they're just really hoping that justice comes soon.

Brian Lehrer: Is there anything, last question, that the public can do to help with this investigation? When they found and identified Luigi Mangione, the mayor and others made a big point of saying public awareness because of the media helped identify the alleged killer there when somebody spotted him. Is there anything that our listeners should know to do in this case to bring justice to Yeremi Colina?

Brittany Kriegstein: I think that same exact thing. Those photos and videos of those alleged attackers are out there, study those pictures. If you know anything, let law enforcement know. If you see people with the same backpacks or shoes that these alleged attackers had, let police know and just spread the word.

Brian Lehrer: WNYC's Brittany Kriegstein, who covers crime and gun violence. Thanks, Brittany.

Brittany Kriegstein: Thank you so much, Brian.

 

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