NY Gang Members Beat And Torture Gay Teen

Members of a street gang who discovered one of their teenage recruits was gay brutally beat and tortured him and two other people in gruesome assaults, police said. The attack came amid heightened attention nationwide to anti-gay bullying after a string of suicides attributed to it last month.

Seven of the suspects in the attacks were arrested and being held pending arraignment on charges of robbery, sodomy, menacing and assault as hate crimes. Two others were being sought.

Police Commissioner Raymond Kelly said the first of the four assaults in the most recent case occurred at about 3:30 a.m. Sunday.

The first victim, a 17-year-old potential recruit for the Latin King Goonies street gang, was grabbed by gang members and taken to an empty Bronx apartment they used for parties and sex, police said. The teen was stripped, beaten and sodomized with a wooden plunger handle, police said.