Bronx Mourns Teenager Killed in Vicious Attack

NEW YORK — For days, the city has mourned the teenager stabbed to death in the Bronx last week in a harrowing attack caught on video, and Wednesday morning, hundreds of people paid their final respects to the boy, Lesandro Guzman-Feliz.

The police said Lesandro, 15, was killed by gang members last week outside a bodega, after the men mistook him for someone else and pounced on him in an attack that was captured on video and shared widely on social media.

On Wednesday, shortly after 9:30 a.m., men wearing the jerseys of Lesandro’s beloved Yankees pulled his black coffin from a hearse and rolled it to the altar of Our Lady of Mount Carmel Church on East 187th Street, about one half-mile from the site of the killing.

“We are gathered here in shock, silence and pain,” the Rev. David Guzman told the packed church in Spanish. “Whenever somebody dies tragically there is a wound in this humanity and in God’s project. Today, a shadow of sadness covers us, Lesandro’s family, the Bronx, but also New York City and the whole world.”

The funeral, which lasted for about 90 minutes, ended with chants of “Justice for Junior! Justice for Junior!” from a crowd of several hundred who were gathered outside the church.

The police have said members of the New York-based Dominican gang, the Trinitarios, were seeking revenge when they dragged Lesandro from the bodega on East 183rd Street and Bathgate Avenue then stabbed him with knives and machetes, leaving him mortally wounded.

The killing, on June 20, might have escaped much notice if not for the surveillance footage, a cellphone video and social media. Word of Lesandro’s murder and the subsequent calls for justice reached celebrities like the rapper Cardi B, the Yankees pitcher CC Sabathia and the basketball star Carmelo Anthony.

But many of those who mourned Lesandro, known as "Junior," were ordinary people, strangers pained by his death and moved to show up at his wake earlier this week or at his funeral Wednesday.

José Alvarado, 33, a pizza delivery man, had finished his shift at 4:30 a.m. and was walking past the church. When he learned of the funeral, he chose to stay, though like so many others, he did not know Lesandro.

“I was outraged by what happened,” Alvarado said. “It hit me because he was only 15. It was ugly.”

Standing next to him by the church steps, his friend Domingo Gonzalez, 28, nodded in agreement.

“My opinion, as a human being, is that no matter what the situation is, savagery should have no place in this city,” Gonzalez said. “It happened surrounded by cameras and now the whole world has watched. It moved people and that’s why we’re standing here today.”

The viciousness of the attack stunned the city and the police received many tips leading to the arrest of eight men, all facing charges in connection with Lesandro’s death.

Lesandro wanted to be a police detective since the age of 5, his mother, Leandra Feliz said, and he was a participant in the Explorers program, a New York Police Department program for high school students. He was a sophomore at the Dr. Richard Izquierdo Health & Science Charter School. Friends and family described him as a “good kid,” the kind who never hesitated to help others.

But the men who attacked Lesandro outside Cruz and Chiky bodega last Wednesday mistakenly believed he was a gang member, law enforcement officials said.

After the attack, the assailants fled and Lesandro ran back into the bodega. He then ran toward St. Barnabas Hospital, a block away, but collapsed on the pavement as blood spilled from his neck.

Police have said that the Trinitarios have been responsible for a spike in violence in the Bronx, including a stabbing in Bronx River Park that left a 14-year-old boy in critical condition two days before Lesandro’s murder.

The Belmont section of the Bronx, where Lesandro was killed, is within the 48th Police Precinct where gang violence is a persistent problem.

In remarks made during “Inside City Hall,” a live broadcast on NY1, Mayor Bill de Blasio, who attended the teenager’s wake, said he wanted to find a way to honor Lesandro’s memory by naming part of the Explorers Program after him.

“We want the next generation of young people who want to serve in the police to know about the young man who didn’t get a chance to,” de Blasio said, “and be inspired by him.”