Four friends allegedly beat a homeless man to death

[Judi Lynn]

Posted on Wed, Sep. 06, 2006
Four friends allegedly beat a homeless man to death
By Madeline Baro Diaz

South Florida Sun-Sentinel

(MCT)

MIAMI - Angry over a homeless man's catcall, four friends went on a "feeding frenzy," police said, beating the elderly man to death with a metal chair, a steel rebar, a rock and a wooden stick.

Two men accused in Saturday's attack are the sons of Christian clergymen. All four have been charged with second degree murder.

"This was pure bloodlust," said Miami police spokesman Lt. Bill Schwartz. "There was no reason for this."

According to a police report, the attack was sparked when Janice Guillen, 18, went to her car to get cigarettes. Guillen told police she heard Jose Perez, 67, who was in the building across the street, toss out a pickup line "she felt was nasty," the report said. She told police she confronted Perez and punched him in the face.

Perez allegedly hit her back, prompting Magdiel Wingfield, 28, Kevin Stone, 27, and Jason Cardenas, 19, to run downstairs from Guillen's Little Havana apartment. The four of them allegedly jumped Perez, punching and kicking him and hitting him with the chair, the rebar and the other objects. At one point they pushed Perez through a glass door, shattering it, the police report said.
(snip/...)

http://www.duluthsuperior.com/mld/duluthsuperior/news/nation/15454273.htm

[Monkeyman]

1. Sad part its happening more and more

[Anakin Skywalker]

2. "Sons of Christian clergymen", huh? Interesting.

[Kagemusha]

3. While disproportionate, the language used makes my eyes roll.

"There was no reason for this." The article then proceeds to recite the reason for this in the police report.

Just say it's massively disproportionate, geez!

[Anakin Skywalker]

4. Well, Amerikkkans have always worshipped the Have's

and the property-owning class. If you are poor or homeless, your life is worthless in the view of most people.

[Judi Lynn]

5. Four charged in fatal beating of homeless man

Posted on Wed, Sep. 06, 2006
MIAMI CRIME
Four charged in fatal beating of homeless man

Four friends who belong to an Evangelical church were charged with beating a homeless man to death over a catcall at a woman in Little Havana.
BY DAVID OVALLE
[e-mail]



The pre-murdered Jose Perez

A homeless man in Little Havana yelled a nasty pickup line at a young woman, enraging her so much that she and three friends beat him to death with a metal chair, a piece of steel rebar, a rock and a wooden stick, police said Tuesday.

The four friends, who grew up together and whose families attend the Church of the Soldiers of the Cross of Christ, have been charged with second-degree murder.

Police said the beating, which took place early Saturday, was so brutal that the 67-year-old victim's body struck and shattered an apartment building's glass door.
''It was pretty vicious,'' said Miami homicide Detective Freddy Ponce.
(snip)

Wingfield's father, Magdiel Wingfield Sr., a pastor at Cross of Christ, could not be reached for comment on Tuesday.

The church originated in Cuba decades ago. Based in Little Havana, it has branches across the country.
(snip/...)

http://www.miami.com/mld/miamiherald/15447804.htm



Janice Guillen, Magdiel Wingfield, Kevin Stone, Jose Cardenas

[Anakin Skywalker]

6. Evangelical Love

LOL!

[Demobrat]

9. Wonder if they were tweakers.

That would explain the violent overreaction. If so they're gonna be real bummed when they crash in jail and come to figure out they're going away for a long, long time - to someplace with no crank. Personally I hope they all get life with no parole. Seems fair.

[Canuckistanian]

17. Charming bunch

If those are churchgoers, I'd hate to see what Godless heathens must look like.

[Truthiness Inspector]

7. Talk about an overreaction

I don't think there is a woman alive who hasn't had nasty stuff said to her. It sucks, but it certainly doesn't warrant murdering the slimeball!

[Name removed]

16. Deleted sub-thread

Sub-thread removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[nashville_brook]

8. who's up for a Florida on-the-scene report?

okay, so i'm not in that particular neighborhood, but i want to share something "floridian" that you might not understand if you'rre from Tennessee or elsewhere.

florida is obsessed with sex offenders, and more power to em... but, really, you wouldn't believe it unless you lived here... there's neighborhood publications and posters... it's very dystopian.

right now i live in a "mission district" farther north, but i can totally imagine something like this happening as a matter of confusion ...or a matter of course.

there's a charged atmosphere, it seems. this old man might have said something downright fugly... but he shouldn't have lost his life for it. i can easily see this happening in my little neighborhood. testosterone-soaked day-laborer lads versus enemies of the damsel in distress (real or imagined). i'm surprised there's not more deaths like this, actually.

[flvegan]

12. What a bunch of crap.

It's blind rage and hatred. It has nothing to do with sex offenders. Dipshit asshole wannabe gangsters beat the elderly, the disenfranshised and the alone because they are just that. They can't defend themselves against a pussy-ass sneak attack from 3 young thugs.

And yeah, I'm Floridian, Tampa. This shit happens all to often, and it has nothing at all to do with misplaced hostility towards someone issuing catcalls. If it did, then these little shits should be Guardian Angel-ing the construction yards. Oh, but wait...those are able folks...with tools...weapons...in numbers. Nah, no little shitstain wants ANY part of that.

Predators...that's all they are, and they're playing it for an excuse. Fuck 'em.

[bluerum]

10. Good xtian boys protecting the virtuous. nt

[LuckyLib]

11. The young woman's surname would suggest she is a Latina.

So was the older man. "Piropos", wise-ass observations of women by men in Latin cultures, are common and shrugged off. This girl (and friends) are beyond help.

[MrPrax]

13. Why are they 'friends' in the headline

18, 27, 28, 19 VS. 67...might as well be Haditha...at least they were 'brothers in arms'

[stranger81]

14. Jesus H Christ

somebody took the "Christian Soldier" bit a little too much to heart . . . .

There is absolutely no rhyme or reason to this type of behavior.

[rocktivity]

15. And keep in mind that the victim precipitated the violence.

He hit her because she hit him!

:mad:
rocknation

[Judi Lynn]

18. Daughter claims body of slain homeless man

Posted on Thu, Sep. 07, 2006
Daughter claims body of slain homeless man
By DAVID OVALLE
[e-mail]

Four days after an elderly man was beaten to death, allegedly at the hands of four young people, his daughter came forward -- saving her father from a pauper's burial.

Iliana Gonzalez, the adult daughter of Jose Perez, 67, walked into the Miami police station late Wednesday to claim her father's body.
She hadn't seen him in several days, but wasn't really worried because she knew he was living in the stairwell of his late mother's apartment building. But then on Wednesday she learned the horrible truth from the media: Perez had been beaten to death early Saturday.
(snip)

Residents at the Villa Gladys apartment knew little about Perez's past -- but they knew he refused to leave the building that his late mother called home.

She had lived on the third floor in the dimly lit building, home to mostly elderly Hispanics who earn little money. She died several years ago.
''His family didn't consider him homeless. He wanted to stay in the building where his mother used to be,'' Miami homicide detective Freddy Ponce said late Wednesday.
(snip)

So Perez slept in the second-story stairwell, where on Wednesday his shredded Looney Tunes handkerchief and black-beaded rosary still hung from a frayed green electric cable.

He kept his few belongings in a small electrical closet on the first floor. A neighbor allowed him to shower at her place. He washed his clothes in the building's laundry room.

Perez, a Cuban American who came to the United States in 1980, earned his money running simple errands for the elderly residents, picking up sugar, bread and coffee from the nearby cafeteria.

''He was here every day. He never talked,'' said William Lamas, the owner of La Libertad cafeteria two blocks away. ``He was always alone.''
(snip/...)

http://www.miami.com/mld/miamiherald/15456260.htm

[NorthernSpy]

19. Take back the night! Take back the night! Lynch the elderly oglers!

:eyes:

At about 2:30 AM on August 28, Bryant and his half brother, J.W. Milam, kidnapped Till from his uncle's house in the small cotton town of Money, Mississippi. According to witnesses, they drove him to a weathered plantation shed in neighboring Sunflower County, where they brutally beat him until he was unrecognizable, cut off an ear, gouged out an eye, then shot him with a .45 caliber pistol before tying a seventy-five pound cotton gin fan around Till's neck with barbed wire. This was to weigh down his body, which was dropped into the Tallahatchie River near Glendora, another small cotton town.

If Susan 'Take Back the Night' Brownmiller could rationalize the lynching of Emmett Till, I'm sure that there will be some who will attempt to minimize the evil that was done to poor Jose Perez.

Sick.