Brazilian cops arrest group accused of attacking gay men

The suspects, two of them minors, were arrested Sunday in connection with the Jan. 28 beating death of Bruno Borges de Oliveira, 18, in downtown Sao Paulo, a police communique said.

"They chose their victims because they were homosexuals. Robbing the victim of his possessions was part of a humiliation ritual," Ruy Ferraz Fontes, the police inspector responsible for the investigation, said in a statement to the daily Folha de Sao Paulo.

Oliveira, from whom the gang robbed his sneakers, telephone and a bus ticket, died from the blows he received, one of them with a scooter, Fontes said.

Investigators say the group members were "skaters" who went around attacking men on two Sao Paulo streets where gays congregate.

These were not the first arrests made for homophobic crimes in Brazil over the past few weeks.

On Jan. 29 police arrested two brothers accused of seducing and murdering four gays in the Amazon city of Manaus.