REELING FROM TRAGEDY
Scores pack Bx. church to hail Lesandro & press for end to violence plaguing streets
Bronx residents reeling from the tragedy of a promising teen's savage murder at the hands of gang members gathered in sorrow Sunday night, and in hope that his death will yield community progress.
A vigil against gang violence attended by more than 100 people began at the Our Lady of Mount Carmel Church in Belmont. Most were adults, some of whom brought along their children.
Lesandro (Junior) Guzman-Feliz, 15, was stabbed to death in Belmont on June 20 when machete-wielding members of the Trinitarios gang pulled him out of a deli. They later alerted his family that they'd butchered him by mistake — they'd meant to kill someone else.
“I know no matter what happens, I know that nothing can bring back my son,” Leandra Feliz, Junior's mother, said during the church event. “It's the greatest pain or suffering that any mother could go through.”
“What we need to do now is work together and to unite as to make sure that gang, and gang violence in general, comes to end because they don't realize when you kill a child that child doesn't come back to come home again,” she said.
Each speaker at the church ceremony addressed the problems that compel neighborhood young people to join criminal gangs.
“I know the feeling of not having anybody and joining a gang to belong,” said Michael (Love) Rodriguez, a member of Release the Grip, an antigang group that offers gang members therapy and study help.
“We have to step up ... we
have to lift up our community,” Rodriguez said.
Lesandro was a member of the NYPD’s Law Enforcement Explorers’ program, which is for teens interested in police careers.
“Young Junior Feliz lost his life too soon,” said Abdul Hafeez Muhammad, a minister of the Nation of Islam.
“We have to deal with the issues of the people in these gangs and change the mindset of the people in them,” Muhammad said in an interview. “That kind of mindset ... that’s what led to the savage act.”
After the church ceremony, the vigil moved to the site of a mural painted in Junior’s honor by a vacant lot on E. 184th St. between Bathgate and Third Aves. Junior used to play basketball there.
“It’s nice that it’s at a place he used to hang out. And it’ll be here for a long time,” said Judy Rosa, who traveled from Queens to see the mural.
“We lost a great person for the police department,” said Lou Telano of the New York Veteran Police Association.
Telano — addressing Junior’s mother and father — said that in the slain teen’s honor, his group will raise money for the Explorer program.
“We’re going to support the Explorers in your son’s name — their uniforms and their transport,” Telano said.
Junior’s brutal murder — captured on surveillance video — shook Belmont to its core.
“It’s heart-wrenching knowing this violence is happening in the community,” said Susan Biondolillo, 40. She didn’t know Junior — but attended the vigil because she felt the violence hit close to home.
“It astounded us all. We knew that it could have been one of our own family members,” the Rev. Jonathan Morris of Our Lady of Mount Carmel Church said in his Sunday morning homily.
“Think about the lies that these gang members believed about themselves,” said Morris.
Morris said people may ask how the Trinitarios “could stab … could use knives and machetes … How is that possible?”
The answer, Morris said, is that the Trinitarios “believed the lie that the way they would have sense and meaning and purpose would be to kill another human being.
“How stupid. How crazy,” said Morris. “But they believed the lie that they weren’t valuable because they were a son or daughter of God, but rather (because of ) who was their friend or their fake community.”