Survivor describes deadly MS-13 ambush after LI woman allegedly lured teensBy Kevin Sheehan and Jorge Fitz-Gibbon
March 21, 2022
The sole survivor of a deadly Long Island massacre by the notorious MS-13 gang described in court Monday how he ran for his life as one of the machete-wielding thugs shouted, “Hack him!”
Elmer Alexander Arteaga Ruiz, 22, delivered his chilling testimony as he came face to face with Leniz Escobar — the steely-eyed defendant dubbed the “Little Devil” — for the first time since she allegedly lured his four pals to their deaths in 2017.
A mugshot of Escobar, a k a “Diablita” in Spanish, was released Monday and shows her giving a cold dead stare to the camera while smirking.
Ruiz, asked on the stand about Escobar’s “Little Devil” Snapchat handle, said, “It fit her well.”
The witness testified in federal court in Central Islip that Escobar, 22, lured him and the other young men to smoke marijuana at a local park — but they were soon ambushed by MS-13 gangsters.
“They came through a hole in the fence,” he said of the group’s attackers. “There were eight or nine. They covered their faces with sweaters. They came and formed a semi-circle. They told us get down on our knees.
“They said, ‘Don’t move. Whoever moves, dies,’ ” he recalled.”I ran because the first words they said was that we were going to die, they were going to kill us, and they had weapons.”
Ruiz’s four buddies tried to flee, too. But they couldn’t get away fast enough and were butchered at the scene.
Federal prosecutors said during opening statements that the victims were “just high-school kids” who were “trying to look tough” by flashing gang signs on social media — but that MS-13 members took the postings as a sign of “disrespect.”
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Source:
https://nypost.com/2022/03/21/why-ms-13-gang-member-lured-long-island-teens-to-their-deaths-prosecutors/
