By:JOSEPH KELLARD
According to the police, the six adults and one juvenile donned gang colors, brandished weapons and hit and kicked the OHS students before a school security guard broke up the scuffle. The subjects fled in a black 2000 Ford SUV.
Police arrested Arturo Varela, 16; John Neira, 16; Erick Joseph, 16; Patrick Alvarado, 16; Steve Pesantez, 19; Matthew Wishnie, 16; and an unidentified 14-year-old, all of Baldwin, who were all charged with second-degree riot.
The youths drove the SUV into an OHS parking lot at about 2:50 p.m. on June 1, when school was letting out, and a security guard recognized that they didn't belong at the high school, Detective Lt. Greg Detwiller, commander of the Fourth Squad detectives in Hewlett, said. The security guard watched them exit the vehicle, walk toward the school as if looking for someone, flash hand signs and don clothes with blue and white colors that identified them as members of MS13, a Salvadoran gang, police said.
"As the students of the school were exiting, [the seven subjects] started to walk toward these individuals and asked if they were in a rival gang," Detwiller said. "The seven showed pipes, and a fight broke out. Police were called to the scene, and prior to their arrival the seven individuals fled the scene."
Approximately 30 minutes later, undercover officers from the Bureau of Special Operations stopped the SUV on Grand Avenue in Baldwin and arrested the subjects based on a security guard's identification of them. They were taken to the Fourth Precinct and charged with riot. Pesantez and Wishine were also charged with fourth-degree possession of a dangerous weapon.
According to police, Pesantez and Wishine pulled out small pipes and started swinging them, and the other five youths gathered around the OHS students and "started hitting and kicking them."
Asked why the suspects were not charged with assault, Detwiller said, "There was no assault. Nobody was hurt at the scene. The security guards were able to intervene prior to anybody being struck or hit."
Detwiller told the Herald that in order to have an assault, there has to be a physical injury, and no individual involved in the incident received any medical attention at the scene or at a hospital later on.
At a press conference at Fourth Squad headquarters in Mineola the next day, officers displayed various items they said they found on the subjects and in the vehicle at their arrests. They included two kitchen-style knives, a leg from an aluminum walker, three navy-and-light-blue bandannas, one light blue headband, four beaded necklaces, and blue San Diego Padres and Los Angeles Dodgers baseball caps. Detwiller said the knives were never displayed at the scene.
Detwiller said that two of the three OHS students police suspect were involved the incident have been identified, but that as of last Wednesday, police couldn't confirm if they were in a gang, and believe that there were more than three involved.
"The best information that we have at this time is that [the seven MS13 members] showed up looking for members of a rival gang called the SWP, Salvadorans with Pride," Detwiller said at the press conference.
Detwiller told the Herald that police have not been able to "ascertain whether any of the victims were members of SWP."
