Late Monday evening two males and two females, between the ages of 15 and 18, were attacked at Harriet Island Park in St. Paul, Minnesota. The victims were held captive at gunpoint, robbed, and the two female victims were gang raped.
It is a shocking hate crime that St. Paul police are calling “unconscionable.” The attack has not received very much media attention and details are just now trickling out. Salman Yousafzai is covering the story for the Star Tribune and openly admitted to censoring information about the suspects in his own article yesterday. He said he was not including information about the suspects because they had not been formally charged yet.
Four suspects have been arrested. They are black males between the ages of 16 and 20. The park is in a census track that is only 11% black.
The black males robbed the unnamed victims at gunpoint. Then they ordered them to strip down to their underwear. Their belongings were taken. Their car was ransacked. They were ordered to unlock their phones. The victims were taunted by having guns shoved in their mouths. One of the male victims was kicked in the face.
Then the two females were put inside a vehicle owned by the suspects and gang-raped at gunpoint.
Photos of two of the perps from their Facebook pages.
Three of the suspects have been named. We found Facebook pages for two of them. Devonte J. Vann, DeAndray Easley, and Vershone Hodges. Two of the suspects were arrested after they committed another armed robbery Tuesday morning. The other two were arrested shortly after. Easley told police he was not at the park at all, while Vann told police he was at the park for the filming of Easley’s rap video.
Three of the suspects have each been charged with two counts of first-degree sexual assault, four counts aggravated robbery and two counts of kidnapping. Prosecutors are trying to get the 16-year-old certified as an adult
Not a single media outlet in the entire Minneapolis metro has published the race of the victims.
