"opportunity school" called J.R.E. Lee that his parents and teachers hoped would straighten him out." right...
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Bosco Enriquez was beaten and raped after helping Miami cops bust Latin gangs
Read Part 2 of Bosco Enriquez's saga.
Illustration by Tristan Elwell
It was 4 a.m. when two cops galloped up the stairs of the quiet Kendall home, turned left, and burst into the boys' room. One was a monster, a tall blond officer in cargo jeans, a T-shirt, and boots. His partner was a smaller African-American.
Henriquez in exile in Nicaragua. Read Part 2 of Bosco Henriquez's saga.
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Bosco Enriquez, a gawky 15-year-old, was dead asleep. So was his 13-year-old brother, Oscar. The boys immediately heard their mom, Maria, sobbing. They sat up.
"Do you know why we're here?" the monster barked.
"No idea," Bosco replied. "I have no idea who you are."
"We're from Hialeah and we are charging you with aggravated battery. We have video."
Before the boys could dab the sleep from their eyes, Bosco's hands were cuffed behind his back and he was led outside to a patrol car.
That was 16 years ago. Charges were filed and then quickly dropped. The grainy video, which showed an anonymous beatdown at a 7-Eleven, was mysteriously damaged and cops acknowledged the 15-year-old hadn't been in Hialeah that night. But Bosco was a member of one of the nation's most infamous gangs, the International Posse, in an era when local cops were fighting a pitched battle for the soul of America's Hispanic youth.
"I decided to start working with police then," Bosco says now, over the phone from Nicaragua. "I decided to change my life. But they betrayed me. They all betrayed me."
It's hard today to recall America's era of Latin-gang mayhem. A Florida grand jury report in the '90s showed that 5,000 young people, mostly under the age of 30, were members of about 60 gangs in Dade County. They were deeply involved in murder, burglary, drugs, drive-by shootings, and drug sales. "Large metropolitan or populated areas are threatened by recruitment of gang members and gang-related crime," concluded the report, which was submitted by Fred Pfeiffer, then senior judge of the state's Ninth Circuit.
Bosco Enriquez is among the most horrendous victims of the hysteria of that time. In the months after the 1996 raid on his family's Kendall home, he wore a wire and helped bring down some of the International Posse's most despicable leaders on drug charges. In exchange, there were no rewards or thank-yous. Rather, his ponytailed police handler — a maverick gang-detail veteran named Gadyaces Serralta — would release Bosco's name in court documents. The boy would be beaten almost to death with a baseball bat during a gang fight and his house shot up by angry gang members. Later, after kicking a drug habit he claims resulted from police carelessness, he was raped in federal custody and then exiled from his home in the United States to Nicaragua, a country he had barely known as an infant.
I have spent the past two months combing through mountains of dusty court files that document Enriquez's case, as well as the personnel file of Serralta, the officer who recruited the boy. The result is an outrage. Local educators and police, as well as federal immigration authorities, failed this kid. Cops both in Miami and across the nation need more oversight when they use children to snitch. The current system stinks.
"My brother is the smartest guy I have always known, and he always protected me from everything," little brother Oscar says. "He just didn't deserve this."
Bosco Enriquez's story begins in Grenada, Nicaragua, an elegant, half-millennium-old city on Lake Nicaragua, during the early years of the Sandinista revolution. Bosco's dad, Oscar Sr., was a biologist who like many in the Central American country's educated classes, came into conflict with Daniel Ortega and his Sandinista hoodlum buddies.
So when Bosco was 4 years old and his brother a baby, the family escaped to Miami, first settling in Little Havana, then a mile north in Little Managua, and finally in the suburban tangle of West Kendall. Both parents found jobs, and the boys were well-behaved. Bosco worked hard at Bent Tree Elementary and scored straight A's.
"I was always a good student through sixth grade," Bosco recalls. "Honors programs, gifted programs, all that stuff. I had learned English myself at an early age. Everything came easy to me."
But when he entered Howard D. McMillan Middle, trouble began. Oscar Sr. became a phlebotomist working the night shift at Kendall Regional Medical Center. He left home at 6 p.m. and often didn't return until 8 a.m. the next day. Bosco's mom, Maria, cleaned houses in the morning and toiled as a department store cashier in the afternoon. The boys' 80-year-old grandmother, Josefa, tried to keep up.
The first sign of trouble came when Bosco was 12. He grabbed the keys to his grandma's Ford and attempted to drive to his girlfriend's house. But the kid could barely see over the dashboard and crashed into a Mobil gas station on Kendall Drive. The Ford was totaled, and Bosco was left trapped and bloody. Police pulled him out of the wreck, "but they didn't even ask for a license," Bosco recalls. "I got grounded."
Then he began getting into fights, soon earning the ire of a well-meaning principal and a police officer assigned to the school. Bosco was temporarily moved to an "opportunity school" called J.R.E. Lee that his parents and teachers hoped would straighten him out.
47 comments
"It's hard today to recall America's era of Latin-gang mayhem." Are you fkd in the head? Walk to your nearest barrio and if you cant spot a bunch of latin king, ms13, la familia, and 300 other latino gang tags everywhere, you are blind too. Or maybe just a lying apologist sack of shit.
This is horrifying.
I came from Hong Kong which have a long successful tradition of 'releasing snakes', using trained /police officers/ to go undercover! There are adults who looks much younger and some of them are cops! That's what they should have used to do undercover work instead of a minor, W T F!?!
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I dont know what type of psychological problems/hurt feelings still lies within you, but you should be careful when putting people names out there like that. Im a very close to friend to Hamburger and never was he out there selling weed or "running" with Bosco. Stop sitting around and running people's names on dade clerk and worry about your own situation. Your comment was just an absurd and pathetic attempt for attention. Try to grow up, this is not Mcmillan anymore.
Its funny how all you idiots are still mentally masturbating to your little war stories pretty much shows you never grew out of that shit. Losers.
Look we can all say what we want about dude and judge him on all his misfutunes and its very normal which ever way you put cut or slice it he manifested his own situation trust me I'm probally the main reason why he joined a hand in the first place I used to beat the dog shit out of bosco growing up and hoe him up and rob him for his dope I'm not exactly proud of my doings and I'm not justifying anything I couldn't help but notice all the comments and get vexed about all you people talking shit about dude just the other day you were probally shaking his hand and saying he was your dog needless to say that a good percentage of you niggas commenting on this shit were snitches and bitchmade yourselves in conclusion let's all be grownups and put are pride and past were it belongs in the past. Let's show him support in the time he needs it most due you actually think he doesn't have to look in the mirror and remind himself what he did in the past really sit back and think about it. He just wanted out and couldn't be a man and pay the piper I as well as most of you have been to prison adversity and face many dark situations but I kept it real and dealt with the situation I created all by myself....
rudder,i was in prison w you, and i paid my dues like a real man, but dont defend this piece of shit niggah whos a fuckboy! if they want to write articles about some shit. why dont they write about all the cases and real niggahs bosco snitched on. i was there at dadeland the day police rounded up the boys. i know what he did to his own people.where they do that at? when i read this shit, it got me mad as fuck cause i knew all those niggahs he snitched on.and what kind of dude gets fucked in prison and dont do shit about it? he stayed sleeping next to buddy for weeks after that. el tipo es una rata y un maricon. i got no love for shit like that,fuck him! jinx
PUNK ASS NIGGA THATS MY CUZZIN YOU TALKING BOUT IM FROM MIAMI AND I WAS IN A GANG AND IVE BEEN TO PRISON JUST LIKE BOTH OF YALL(8YEARS) BUT IF A NIGGA TRY AND PIN A DRIVE BY SHOOTING ON YOU AND FEDS RAID YOUR CRIBS SHOWING SIGNED AFFIDAVITS OF YOUR HOMIES SNITCHING ON YOU WHAT.... YOU GONNA TAKETHAT LONG RIDE??? MY BOY DID THE RIGHT THING HOMIE AND AS FAR AS GETING FUCKED IN PRISON LOL DUDE THIS REPORT IS NOT AS ACCURATE AS YALL MAY THINK DUDE TOOK ON 4 CATS N SHANK 3 BEFORE ONE DUDE MANAGE TO SODOMIZE HIM SO MY DOG AINT NO PUNKTHE FEDS WER ON HIM SINCE HE GOT THERE. INP JINX NEVR HEARD OF YOU HOMIE AND IM SURENO OTHR NIGGA EVER HAS EITHR THAS WHY YOU WERENT ARESTD WHEN MY DOG TOOK OUT ALL THEM SCUMBAGS DOWN. YOUR A DICK PULER, A WANABE YOU WISH YOU LIVEDTHE LIFE BACK THEN NOW YUR HERE JUDGING NIGGAS THAT REALY LIVED IT. bOSCO WAS ALMOS KILLED 3X REPRESENTING INP HEWAS IN A COMA FOR DAYS. oNLY REAL NIGGA I SEE ON HERE RUDDER. INP JINX U A JOKE LOL FAKE THUG NO LOVE!!!! JSTICE FOR MY NIGG BOSCO BECUSE NO MATTR WHO YALL ARE YOU COULDN WALK A MILE IN HIS SHOES!!!!!!!!!
u cant even say who you are pussy nigga! i lived and banged outside kendall, unlike u who stayed in your front porch! niggah fuck you whoever the fuck you are. eat a dick just like your cousin!
I was with bosco one time at the station when the police beat the fuck outta that dude... He ain't wanna be no cop... That's bullshit... He snitched cause he's a fucking snitch... What you gonna do back then in dade at 15 on your first offense? Nothing! A few more offenses you might catch 21 days in juvenile... That nigga ain't wanna do no time so he bitched up... You a joke bosco... You are now famous... Famous for being a fucking snitch and for getting fucked in your ass! Congrats...
bosco was a bitch! to help himself, he tried to fuck up everyone else around him! when u do dirt, u get dirt! i know bosco and he was a straight scumbag, but so were a lot of other inps too! real niggahs do real thangs! ol school international jinx!
New Garbage news stories from the new times... This guy is a piece of crap that robbed people, burglarized homes / schools and sold drugs and terrorized neighborhoods!! Great story!
lopez u dirty cop everybody here remember detective lopez? i know him from way back when he and his partner use to frame and beat up kids in kendall i guess i should do what bosco did and do a story on you lol
he did dirt but so did you homie we all have and who is u cuz thats my dog and if you real say ur neme u just wanna be gangsta
Bosco was a Cool as Dude ! It's unfortunate he got exploited to join a gang as a 13 yr old boy & lost his childhood. And even worse it seems he got exploited by Cops. Good for him having the BALLS to tell this story. Hopefully it helps him heal & grow as an Adult.
WHAT GOES AROUND COMES AROUND, U SHOULD HAVE BEEN A COP IF U WANTED TO BE A SNITCH."DONNIE BOSCO" AS RAT HAHAHA
my dude had more balls than any inp ever he was the youngest first on out to fight last one to stop nothing but love all inp were snitching i was one so i know this pussy @ss hoe
You might've been snitching like this bitch ass nigga but not everybody was snitching... That's just what you coward ass niggas tell yourselves to make you feel better... Old school inp keylow!
The New Times has become a rag it used to have real investigative reporting when Defede was there here is the editor slanting a story wow bad guy deported thats great we need to deport more bad guys period!!!
i read a similar story a couple of weeks back from this publication about a guy from trininad. same senario. this guy is making this up to try and to get back in the US. raped in federal custody? come on. its the same exact story. come up with something real new times.
Miked, the mounds of public records I have garnered pretty much prove he's not making this up. Moreover, there are dozens of cases of people being thrown out of the county unfairly. This, though, is a particularly egregious case. And just FYI, we didn't do a story on anybody being deported to Trinidad.
13 yr old gang members? INPs? what a joke. Cops putting kids in a predicament is the main story.
Bosco don't like living in Nica. Now making up stories about being done dirty by cops. When he's the one who's done the most dirt.
Bosco don't like living in Nica. Making up stories about being done dirty by the cops, when he's the one that did the most dirt.
Damn my boy Bo.. cool ass dude. all these fake gangsters just hating on shit people do as kids.
Hero? Victim? This crap. This guy don't care about nobody, not even his own mother. Will say and do anything.
this piece of garbage deserves no simpathy. he aint no victim. he fucked up alot of live too. rest in piss u rat..
you a bitch i know him since i was a git you just hating cuz he fucked u up he was true soldier till his people turned on him and juice if u real say ur name!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Ain't no excuse for being a snitch! He thought somebody mightve told on him? So snitch on everybody? That's a bitch ass nigga... Inp keylow... Kristian Guirola...
aint you Brads brother?? lol u the biggest bitch there is keylow!!!!! i remember bosco wooping your punk ass all over macmillan so much your brother had to tell him to stop. thats what i mean fake ass wanna be niggas.
holy shit... i grew up with bosco!! fuck the police!!! made him snitch and then leave him for the wolves!! smh
Ehhh, sounds like his parents let him down at an early age. Something else had let him down aside from "educators and law enforcement" if a 13 year old thinks its a good idea to join a gang. 13 is old enough to have right and wrong instilled in you.
I personally knew and grew up with bosco and no these are not made up stories. He went through all of that. What is sad is that he was promised something as a kid from law enforcement that was never delivered. Although he is responsible for his actions and had a chance to clean up, he didn't and chose to continue using drugs just like he did in his childhood. Regardless, he suffered a lot and he in a situation that nobody deserves to go thru. I feel sympathy for him and I hope he can hopefully find peace wherever he is.
Or maybe as the article stated they work working over night shift and two jobs to house their children and keep food in thier mouth. Not everyone has the luxury of protecting thier kids 24-7. People like you are the problem with society, on the outside looking in. We can all grow up with the silver spoons of Coral Gables...
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