“The Beast Has Eaten!”: MS-13 Member Offers The Nation An Example of the Rising Gang Carnage in the United States
jonathanturley
Defense lawyer Sam Schmidt, defense attorney for Julio Chavez has his work cut out. His client is looking at a first-degree murder charge but helped create the perfect case for a prosecutor: a murder in front of witnesses after which he displayed MS-13 gang signs and allegedly proclaimed “The beast has eaten!” It turns out that the man Chavez allegedly killed, Maurice Parker, 21, was not, as Chavez believed, a Blood. Just a guy wearing a red sweatshirt.
A former MS-13 member is now a witness against Chavez in the killing on May 18, 2007. Jose Molina says that, after shooting Parker, Chavez said “‘Yeah, homie, that’s how you’re supposed to do it. You see the blood coming out of his head?'” He then said, “The beast has eaten!” Molina explained that “he had just given a soul to the devil.”
Schmidt is doing the best he can by challenging the fact that the words were not mentioned in interviews with agents. It is a valid argument but one that is not likely to overcome the impact of the words on a jury or a judge in the Long Island case.
This is an example of the mindless violence that is only likely to get worse as these gangs continue to feed on the drug trade. MS-13 is arguably the most dangerous of these gangs with a history of vicious attacks, often cutting off limbs with machetes.
