Jun 16, 2009 6:33 pm US/Eastern
Missing L.I. Teen May Be Victim Of Gang Members
SOUTHOLD, N.Y. (CBS) ―
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Police in Suffolk are searching for 15-year-old Eber Lopez.
CBS
Investigators on Long Island's North Fork said tips they received led them to believe the search may be a race against time.
Not far from the historic Green Port ferry and just blocks from the high school he should've been attending, Suffolk police were called in to investigate the suspicious case of a missing 15-year-old boy Eber Lopez.
Neighbors said Lopez appeared to go to work, and seemed much older than a teenager.
He lived across from a playground near the heart of the village in a rented white house on Center Street.
"I have seen the police officers show up a couple of times asking for him. I did not realize he was asking about someone that young," said neighbor Kathleen Bifulco.
The teen was last see on June 7 at a house party in nearby Southold, where police believe he may have been approached by gang members.
"There was about 40 people at the party. He was taken outside by a number of men. We don't have the exact count on it just yet. That was the last that anyone saw of him," said Dep. Insp. Robert Oswald.
Lopez' neighbors were stunned to learn there's a strong possibility he's a victim of foul play.
"Well, it would've been nice if the cops would've told, and it wouldn't have been word-of-mouth from anyone else on the streets," said one neighbor.
"It's just scary, the fact that it's just right around the corner, and they still don't know where the kid is," another neighbor said.
Detectives were urging anyone at the party that night, or at the local deli where Lopez worked to come forward, even anonymously.
(© MMIX, CBS Broadcasting Inc. All Rights Reserved.)
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