Remembering Junior: 3 years since Lesandro Guzman-Feliz's murder
NEW YORK (WABC) -- A vigil was held Monday to honor the life of 15-year-old Lesandro "Junior" Guzman-Feliz who was killed three years ago in a brutal gang attack outside a Bronx deli.
His friends and family gathered outside the bodega where he was killed and lit candles for Junior.
They wore shirts and placards with his picture and gathered beneath the mural that honors him forever.
Guzman-Feliz was mistakenly targeted as a rival gang member by a group of 14 men all believed to be members of the Trinitarios gang on June 20, 2018.
He was stabbed to death in a crime that stunned the city with its sickening depravity, and launched an international social-media movement under the hashtag #justiceforjunior that sought justice for the teen.
Justice would eventually come, but as then-NYPD Chief of Detectives Dermot Shea said two years ago, "I don't think the family will ever recover in a case like this. It never ends for victims."
Five gang members have been convicted thus far. One man sentenced to life in prison without parole and the other four serve 20-plus years to life.
One year ago, a vigil and march were held as friends and family started at Junior's church, Our Lady of Mount Carmel, before marching to the bodega. The march was similar to the route Junior took that night, when he ran for his life.
Leandra Feliz, the mother of the Bronx teenager, became the face of grief for Junior. She has been advocating for a bill to have panic buttons installed in all bodegas.
"My son has already passed," she said last year of what she hoped would be called Junior's Law. "They killed my son. We have to protect our future kids and our community."
The anniversary comes amid a grim parade of violence and heartache in NYC that seems to rise by the day.
Feliz said Monday that she wants the violence in NYC to stop -- and few know as deeply the cost of untethered and out-of-control street violence as she does.
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