Cops: NM Teens Preyed on Homeless, Killed 2

Sleeping men were beaten to death
By Rob Quinn,  Newser Staff
Posted Jul 21, 2014 2:16 AM CDT
Cops: NM Teens Preyed on Homeless, Killed 2
Alex Rios, 18, was arrested on Saturday.   (Albuquerque Police)

Three teenagers in Albuquerque, NM, took part in the violent murder of two homeless men over the weekend, say police, who suspect the teens could be behind dozens of other attacks. Alex Rios, 18, Nathaniel Carrillo, 16, and 15-year-old Gilbert Tafoya were arrested on Saturday for the murder of two men sleeping in a vacant lot who had cinder blocks smashed on their heads in an attack that left them unrecognizable. "My question is: Who failed these kids? How did it get to this point?" a police spokesman tells the Albuquerque Journal. "It was so violent. I was sick to my stomach."

A third man told police that he managed to escape the attack and recognized one of the youth as a nearby resident. A criminal complaint states that the teens told police that they had gone out looking for people to beat up because Tafoya had broken up with his girlfriend and was upset. Police say Tafoya told them they had been attacking the city's homeless population over the last year and had attacked 50 people in the last few months, KRQE reports. Police are looking for more possible victims, but it's "hard getting some transients to come forward to express that they were victims of crime," a spokesman says. (More Albuquerque stories.)

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