Park punks’ rampage ends

Queens parkgoers can rest a little easier now that two teenage suspects who say they unleashed their more-than-a-month-long rampage of murder and terror in Flushing Meadows-Corona Park in order to buy food, are behind bars.
Queens District Attorney (DA) Richard A. Brown charged Elmhurst resident Yovamni Rivera, 17 and Corona resident Marco Polanco, 17, on Friday, January 5, 2007, with four separate counts of second-degree attempted murder, assault and robbery during a terror spree that began on November 20, 2006 and continued through Christmas Day.
Still, police confirm that they will continue to patrol the park even though the crime spree suspects are in custody.
Ten separate attacks took place in the park during this span including a murder, and Christmas Day beating that has left Little Neck resident Jae Woo Park in a coma and fighting for his life at Elmhurst Hospital.
After the incident, Park spent nearly two weeks in the hospital without anyone able to identify him, before family members, who were on vacation visiting relatives in South Korea, finally returned and identified him.
In addition, the DA also charged Rivera with killing 40-year-old Carlos Flores near the park's Willow Lake on December 5, 2006.
During interviews with investigators, Rivera allegedly admitted to trying to rob Flores, and after he resisted, slashing him with a machete and then dumping his body into a nearby lake where authorities discovered the dead body floating the following morning.
&#8220Thanks to great police work, the alleged attackers are now in custody,” DA Brown said. &#8220Those who would commit such heinous crimes are put on notice that my office will vigorously prosecute cases involving attacks on park-goers to the fullest extent of the law.”
Rivera, whose nickname on the street was &#8220Nyquil,” for his propensity to knock people out with one punch, faces 25-years-to-life on the murder charge, and both he and Polanco face up to 25 years in prison on the attempted murder and each of the robbery charges.
Police were tipped off when the defendants began using one of the victims' stolen credit cards, helping them make the arrests.
In addition, the DA charged a third suspect, Herman Gonzalez, 19, with second-degree robbery for helping Rivera and Polanco beat a man and stealing money and a cell phone from the victim in the first attack on November 20. Gonzalez also told authorities that the attacks were even more widespread than originally thought, with at least four additional attacks taking place and another suspect still at large, according to published reports.