Thread by @ProPublica

1/ Thread: This is a story about what happens when you say no to #MS13.

@hannahdreier spent the year reporting on the gang on Long Island. This story is from her and @Ksurana6.

It is long. It is riveting. It is graphic.

2/ Jonathan came to the US from Honduras in 2013, to be with his mother on Long Island.

Later, he remembered how lonely it had been — so he liked to be the first to welcome new immigrant teens when they showed up to Bellport High.

That’s how he met Gerson Saravia.

3/ Jonathan introduced Gerson to his friends, including:

-the Morales brothers, from Guatemala
-Alfred, a Salvadoran-American freshman

Soon, Gerson was coming over to their houses after school to play video games.

4/ Toward the end of their junior year, Jonathan noticed Gerson was falling in with a different crowd.

He started wearing the Nike Cortez sneakers and blue and white rosary worn by members of MS-13.

Before long, he confirmed to them that he’d joined the gang.

5/ Gerson urged Jonathan, the Morales brothers and Alfred to join MS-13, too, for their own protection.

But the friends already felt safe. They said no.

They started avoiding Gerson when they saw him with his new crew.
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6/ The boys went about their summers: Jonathan worked demolition, the Morales brothers also got jobs.

Alfred went to summer school.

Gerson was there, too.

Alfred said Gerson would glare at him in class. When he asked why he was staring, Gerson just walked away.

7/ On the last Friday of summer vacation, Aug 19 2016, the Morales brothers hosted a barbecue. As the party broke up, an older man invited the friends to smoke pot in a nearby patch of woods. The brothers had other things to do.

But Jonathan said he’d go, and Alfred came along.

8/ The night was warm and still. The clearing in the woods was small, but someone had left a chair and tires to sit on.

Almost as soon as Jonathan and Alfred arrived with the older man, the attack began.

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9/ Jonathan turned to run, but tripped after a few steps. He felt the first blows land on his back. He felt the impact but not the pain as machetes cut into him dozens of times, slicing to the bone.

His blood spattered onto the chair, the tires and the leaves of the oak trees.

10/ As Jonathan lost consciousness, Alfred managed to get to his feet, despite deep cuts in his legs and arms. He punched one of the men, pulling down his bandanna, and saw the attacker’s face.

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11/ It was Gerson.

12/ Alfred limped out to the road, leaving a trail of blood in the dirt. He fell at the foot of a ragged lawn, where a passerby saw him gasping, with a bashed head, and called the police.

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13/ The following afternoon, Alfred got in touch with the Morales brothers. He was in the hospital with a fractured skull and machete wounds all over his body. He said that Jonathan was in a coma, between life and death.

He said and the gang might come for the brothers next.

14/ That weekend, older strangers offered the Morales brothers rides and seemed to be following them home.

They sensed that Alfred was right; they were the gang’s next targets.

Afraid for their lives, they went to the police station. A detective gave them a “panic alarm."

15/ It was Monday, three days after the attack.

Jonathan awoke choking on the tubes in his throat. The pain hit him all at once.

His mother ran to his side. Then a nurse, and the police officers who had been assigned to guard the door.

16/ Doctors had cut off Jonathan’s hair while he lay in a coma and pulled his scalp together with more than 100 staples.

They had reattached his severed left hand.

His arms were in casts down to the fingertips.
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17/ That night, Jonathan says, Police Detective Kevin Caraher came to speak with him and his mother. He said that if Jonathan worked with police, officials would keep him safe cover his medical bills and his family would be eligible for a special visa for crime victims.

18/ (When we asked whether they made these commitments, Caraher and the police department declined to comment.)

19/ Jonathan could barely speak. Propped up on pillows, he shared all he knew about the MS-13 members at school. He balled his bandaged right hand in a fist around a marker and wrote out Gerson’s full name for the detective.

20/ In September, Jonathan was released from the hospital, and Gerson was arraigned on two counts of gang assault, each of which carried a sentence of five to 25 years. Jonathan was relieved. It couldn’t be long before the other attackers were caught as well.

21/ When we spoke with Gerson in prison, he folded his hands in his lap and spoke in a polite tone for two hours, carefully denying any role in the attack. He said he had never seen a machete. Later, he said he had known gang members but found it easy to reject their overtures.

22/ Gerson said he asked the judge for forgiveness because a cellmate in jail said it might reduce his sentence.

He said he does not have regrets.

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23/ Meanwhile, MS-13 was starting a killing spree on Long Island. Five students at another high school had been murdered, their bodies discovered soon after Jonathan woke up from his coma. Caraher gave Jonathan’s family a panic button like the one the Morales brothers had.

24/ He made clear that Suffolk County was no longer safe for the family. But they couldn’t afford to move.

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25/ Alfred stopped seeing his friends. Jonathan stayed home after dark and reduced his social circle to just the Morales brothers and a few close friends. Sometimes, a 16-year-old neighbor named Emilio Sanchez would stop by the brothers’ house to share the latest gossip.

26/ In the spring of 2018, Emilio came to the Morales brothers’ house with scary news. Sitting at their kitchen table, Emilio said the gang was asking about them and Jonathan.

“They want to kill you guys, they want me to bring you to them. What do I do?” he said.

27/ On 7/4/18, Emilio’s father went to wake him up early.

After searching the house, he went outside and found Emilio lying near the front gate. He shook him, lifted his hand and saw it was covered in blood.

Emilio had been shot to death, his foot still in his bicycle strap.

28/ After more than two years, no one else was arrested in connection to Jonathan and Alfred's attack. Gerson pleaded guilty and was given 5 years. He may be released in 2020.

Police say they are still investigating Emilio's death.

29/ Now a senior at Bellport High, Alfred still lives a few blocks from Gerson’s family. He keeps to himself to avoid provoking gang members. propub.li/2Tu5ymz

30/ From his wrists to his scalp, Jonathan still bears the thick scars of the attack. After recovering, he found out ICE classified him as a gang member, and wants to detain him.

Neither ICE nor the Suffolk Police Department will say what evidence links Jonathan to gangs.

31/ The special visa and the money for Jonathan’s medical bills never materialized.

His months of recovery put the family into debt.

Unable to afford rent, he and his mother split up this summer to live with different relatives.
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32/ Jonathan wound up in a nearby town.

He was doing laundry recently when he recognized two young men from Bellport. He said they aimed their fingers at him as if they were pointing a gun.

He works in construction now, hauling wood past sunset with his one good hand.

33/ This story was reported by @hannahdreier and @Ksurana6. To read @ProPublica’s other coverage of MS-13 on Long Island, go here: propub.li/2Fb3YD6

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