They gathered to remember a friend – and to call for an end to the violence and hatred.
Dozens braved the cold at an evening vigil in memory of Anthony Collao, 18, beaten to death by five teens who yelled anti-gay slurs during the fatal attack.
“He was like a brother [to me]. I never thought something like this would happen to him because he was just an overall great guy,” said one of Collao’s best friends, Michael.
According to the district attorney, Nolis Ogando, 17, Luis Tabales, 17, Alex Velez, 16, Christopher Lozada, 17, and Calvin Pietri, 17, essentially crashed a party at 87th Avenue and 90th Street on Saturday, March 12. They stood outside the house, yelling “Get . . . out of the front, this is my hood.”
The suspects then chased Collao to a location on 90th Street, between 88th and 89th Avenue. A witness told the DA that Ogando was carrying a cane and Velez was holding what appeared to be a chrome bat.
A second victim told the DA that the group caught up with Collao, “threw him against a car and began to punch, kick and strike him with an object that appeared to be a stick.”
About 15 minutes after the beating, cops arrested four of the suspects. Lozada was taken into custody wearing the victim’s Atlanta Braves baseball cap, with his clothes covered in blood. Officers recovered a metal pipe smeared with blood near the fatal scene.
Collao was taken to Jamaica Hospital, where he was on life support. He died on Monday, March 14.
At the candlelight vigil, held in front of the building where Collao was beaten to death on Thursday, March 24, his 14-year-old sister, Karen, carried a poster with a photo of her brother – gone, but not forgotten.
“It is hard to imagine what goes through someone’s mind when they decide they are going to go out to a party not to have fun, not to dance, not to be with people but to attack someone – because of who you think they are,” said City Council Speaker Christine Quinn. “And it is even harder to imagine what goes through someone’s mind when they then brag about it on Facebook as if the life wasn’t worth very much.”
Quinn was making reference to Facebook postings by Pietri, who reportedly bragged about the attack.
“I never got the chance to know him [Collao] on a personal level,” said Woodhaven resident Miguel Montero, 22. “Regardless, I’ve seen him around and it has shaken me that this sort of hatred exists. From what I saw, he was a good guy.”
City Councilmember Daniel Dromm thanked the Collao family for their courage and strength in light of the tragedy. He offered the family a “community hug.”
“Some day this will all end. Your pain is our pain and we will never forget what you are going through and we will never forget what a good young man this was,” said Dromm.
The five suspects face charges of gang assault in the first degree, manslaughter in the first degree and criminal possession of a weapon in the fourth degree.
Ogando was arraigned on $100,000 bail; Tabales on $200,000; Velez on $100,000 and Lozada on $150,000.
