16-Year-Old Texas Boy Brutally Assaulted
PAULA ZAHN, CNN ANCHOR: Good evening, everyone. Glad to have you with us tonight. Here's what is happening at this moment. The president does a flip-flop on forcing the auto industry to get better gas mileage. Tonight, he's officially asking the Congress to raise the overall miles-per-gallon standards for cars and light trucks. Now, he has opposed that before. We will have more on how gas prices are changing politics and why the president's change of opinion just ahead. Analysts, meanwhile, are now listening to the complete version of Osama bin Laden's latest tape. It was posted on the Internet four days after excerpts appeared. Bin Laden says those behind the cartoons of the Prophet Mohammed should be turned over to al Qaeda for punishment. Just over an hour ago, Senator Arlen Specter threatened to cut off funding for the president's controversial warrantless wiretap program. Specter and others are frustrated at the White House's refusal to give them any details. At this hour tonight, a 16-year-old boy is fighting for his life in a Texas hospital. Police say he's the victim of a horrifying beating and sexual assault, not by grownups, but at the hands of two other teenagers. This story is drawing nationwide attention, and not because of the senseless violence. The victim happens to be Latino. Both of his alleged assailants are white. And, just this week, the Anti-Defamation League warned that, all over the country, Hispanics are being targeted by extremists, because of the anger and passion being raised by the debate over illegal immigration. Ed Lavandera has been on this story all day long. His report came in just moments ago.</s>ED LAVANDERA, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): During a late- night party Saturday, a fight erupted inside this suburban Houston home. Investigators say David Tuck and Keith Turner unleashed a brutal assault on a 16-year-old boy after he tried to kiss a younger girl. Prosecutors say, both suspects dragged the victim into the backyard, kicked him in the head with steel-toed boots, and then sodomized him with a two-inch-thick PVC pipe.</s>MIKE TRENT, PROSECUTOR: They also poured bleach on him. And the victim is in pretty bad shape right now, critical condition, and it's unclear at all whether he is going to survive.</s>LAVANDERA: Authorities say no one at the party called an ambulance until 10 hours after the attack. The 16-year-old was left fighting for his life all night. Neighbors who saw the boy taken away by paramedics were shocked.</s>NANCY BENAVIDES, NEIGHBORHOOD RESIDENT: He was severely beaten. It was just -- oh, my goodness. I couldn't believe it. His face was severely swollen, lips, everything. He just looked -- and blood everywhere.</s>LAVANDERA: Tuck and Turner have been charged with aggravated sexual assault. But, if the victim dies, authorities say the charges will be upgraded to capital murder. David Tuck made a brief court appearance. But his attorney said he was invoking his Fifth Amendment right to not incriminate himself. Keith Turner has not been to court yet. And it's still not clear if he has an attorney. But plenty of people are talking in the town of Spring, the Houston suburb where the attack happened. They are especially stunned by the details the attack might have been racially motivated. Investigators say the suspects yelled racial epithets as they beat the Hispanic victim. Many in this neighborhood say the two suspects were troubled and angry. Classmates and neighbors of David Tuck say he had a history of using racial slurs.</s>DAVID COOK, NEIGHBORHOOD RESIDENT: When we were at his house, there was all sorts of stuff, like he would have swastikas painted on the fence of his backyard. It was just really white-trashy sort of stuff. He would be all sort of "Heil Hitler" crap.</s>LAVANDERA: Timothy Borque doesn't think Keith Turner is racist. He says the 18-year-old often hung out with minority students. But he does Turner acted like a wanna-be gangster.</s>TIMOTHY BORQUE, RESIDENT OF SPRING, TEXAS: He's an</s>LAVANDERA: The last report we had is that the 16-year-old victim remains in the hospital, in critical condition. We're told that he suffered major injuries to internal organs. And prosecutors and investigators say here that it's not likely that he will survive, but that he's been given a 50/50 chance right now -- Paula.</s>ZAHN: Ed, given the fact that a state like Texas has such a large Hispanic population, how nervous are they about this ADL report warning against increased violence targeted as -- at Hispanics because of this debate over illegal immigration?</s>LAVANDERA: You know, it will be interesting to see how the greater portion of the state reacts to this. It's not exactly clear. We haven't heard from the suspects in this case, what exactly what their motivation was. Of course, we have just heard from the prosecutors and investigators today. But, as you know, there has been a long history here in the state of Texas of tension between the Hispanic community and the Anglo community here, going back decades. And, of course, whenever you have issues of immigration and what's coming up Monday, the Day Without an Immigration, and these types of rallies, all of that gets inflamed repeated -- repeatedly, when -- when news like this pop up. So, it will be interesting to see how this news plays into all of that.</s>ZAHN: Ed Lavandera, thanks so much for the update. With me now is the prosecutor in the case, Mike Trent. Thanks so much for joining us tonight, sir.</s>TRENT: Thank you.</s>ZAHN: We just heard in Ed Lavandera's report, there seems to be some indication that perhaps this beating was racially motivated, in part. Do you think the victim was targeted because he was Hispanic?</s>TRENT: Well, when you say targeted, I don't think they sought him out because of him being a Hispanic, but I do think that the severity of the beating, I think that race may have played a part in that, and the severity of the assault on him.</s>ZAHN: So, if race played a part in that, why aren't you going to charge the suspects with a hate crime?</s>TRENT: Well, the way the law works in Texas, if you prove something is a hate crime, it increases the degree of the felony by one degree. But the problem here is that it's already a first-degree felony. Aggravated sexual assault is punishable by anywhere five years to life in prison. It's not going to do any good to allege a hate crime. What I will say is that the jury is going to get all the relevant evidence of any motivations like that, so that they cake make a proper decision on punishment.</s>ZAHN: How troubled are you about what you have heard about these two suspects and some of the things they might have done in the past?</s>TRENT: Well, certainly, looking at their backgrounds, we have information that is bothersome about what may motivate them, and we're going to look into whether they're -- what their affiliations are with extremist groups. And it's a very disturbing case. It's extremely brutal.</s>ZAHN: Do you have any idea what the suspect said to the victim prior to attacking him?</s>TRENT: I don't know the specific words they used, but I do know that, during the beating, there was at least some references calling him a Mexican, as well as perhaps other things that I can't say on live</s>TV. ZAHN: I can appreciate that, sir. Mike Trent, thank you very much for updating us on what you are working on at this hour. We appreciate it.</s>TRENT: You're welcome.</s>ZAHN: And we are going to move along now to our countdown of the top 10 stories on CNN.com -- more than 19 million of you logging on today. Coming in at number 10, the rebuilding at New York's World Trade Center is finally under way tonight, nearly five years after the 9/11 attacks. The process has been delayed because of feuding between politicians and developers. It has gotten very ugly here. Number nine -- gunfire at the Cleveland International Airport today. Authorities say a man attacked two police officers, shooting one in the chest with the officer's weapon, before a third officer fatally shot the gunman. Police confronted the man after receiving reports of a disturbance at the United Airlines ticket counter. Numbers eight and seven just ahead, along with the sudden scramble going on tonight in Washington over energy prices.</s>ZAHN (voice-over): Sky-high gas prices, fuel for a growing political fight. The president's investigating. Congress is criticizing, but is any of it helping you? And the "Eye Opener" -- cyber-stalk. Strange men calling this woman for sex, even knocking on her door at night, all because of this Internet ad. The only thing is, she never placed it. And someone could be making you a victim right now -- all that and much more when we come back.