Almost 12 years ago four good, young people were brutally attacked in a schoolyard in Newark, NJ. Three would die. The fourth was left for dead but survived. In a city where murders were common (105 occurred in the year in question), this attack was particularly horrific.
The facts of the case have been memorialized in court testimony. On the evening of August 4, 2007, the four young people (Terrance Aeriel, Iofemi Hightower, Dashon Harvey and Natasha Aeriel, Terrance’s sister) were hanging out in a remote section of the huge Mount Vernon schoolyard listening to music. Three of them attended Delaware State. The fourth, Iofemi Hightower, was scheduled to begin there that September.
Soon, six boys and men arrived. Two of them, Shahid Baskerville and Gerardo Gomez were just 15, Melvin Jovel was 18 and Alexander Alfaro was 16. The leaders, Rodolfo Godinez, Alfaro’s brother, was 24 and Jose Carranza was 28.
They made some small talk with the victims but suddenly Terrance got a bad vibe.
“Itz tym 2 go,” he texted his sister. When they tried to leave, the group stopped them by brandishing a gun, a machete and a steak knife. The group robbed them and rifled the car. At that point, Natasha feared only a robbery, “then things got crazy.”
Natasha was separated from the others and was sexually assaulted. She was also cut with the steak knife. Then came the shots. Moments later, she, too, was shot. All four were left for dead. She alone survived.
Eventually the attackers were caught, tried and convicted. Five of the six got sentences of roughly 200 years. The sixth, who pled guilty to robbery and sexual assault got 30 years. Appeals have continued almost to the current day.
A memorial was created in their memory with the hope that such violence could be reduced. These were four, good, young people just starting their lives. They did nothing to deserve what happened to them.
It didn’t have to happen.
The two men were “associated” with the MS-13 gang. They, along with Alfaro, were illegally in the country. These are the kinds of people that PDJT is trying to stop from flooding across our southern border by building a wall. If they weren’t here, these four good people would probably still be alive contributing their talents to this country.
Why do the Democrats oppose stopping the flood of illegals like this into the country?