Father of Espat Brother Questions Arrest After Sons Targeted

Tonight, a father is speaking out, defending his sons and questioning the actions of the police. Gilberto Espat, the father of Logan and Mark Espat, says he’s baffled by the charges brought against them. The two were arrested after their home came under gunfire, but according to their father, they’re not criminals; they’re hardworking fishermen who are lucky to be alive. Espat says anyone who truly knows his sons knows they’re not involved in gang activity. So why, he asks, are they the ones facing charges?

 

On the Phone: Gilberto Espat, Father of Espat Brothers

“Around four thirty we were waking up to go fishing. My son was awake and all of sudden he heard something like a gun was cranking up. He ran to the bathroom and he start to hear machine gun, bap, bap, bap, twenty gunshots. He lay down in the bathroom. The gunfire eased down. He opened the door and checked what was going on, one of my son that lives on the other house he saw some men jumping off the fence. He find out the gunshot was right in the house. When he went to check on his little brother that is when he opened the door and said bway, look like somebody wanted to kill us, because they shot up the place. Police didn’t take too long like five minutes, and we reach and they start to figure out what happened and we told them we have cameras and they can check it right now. My son bring them and they start check on the camera and that is how we figure out it was three guys that do the shooting. We report it and the police instead of going and find who did it they come and arrest my son them, lock them up for forty-eight hours and after they forty-eight they say that they will charge them for being a gang members, because those same ones are the ones that do the shooting. How can they shoot their own self when the cameras show people are coming in the yard. They took two of my sons, took them to Hattieville and we have to try to get a lawyer to get Supreme Court bail, we don’t want my sons to go to jail after almost getting killed.”

 

Paul Lopez

“You dispute the charge that they are members of a gang.”

On the Phone: Gilberto Espat

“Of course, because I can’t say that my sons are members of a gang. The people that knows them know that they are fishermen.”