SORRY ABOUT THAT

Gang leader 'apologized' after Bronx boy, 15, was dragged out of a bodega and butchered in a case of MISTAKEN IDENTITY because attackers confused him for a man in a sex video

By Snejana Farberov

Daily Mail
June 23, 2018

The 15-year-old who was dragged out of a Bronx bodega and brutally slashed to death with a machete may have been the victim of a tragic case of mistaken identity involving a sex video, according to cops - and now gang leaders are apologizing via social media.

Investigators believe Lesandro Guzman-Feliz, 15, could have been mistaken for a man in an online sex tape with a relative of one of the attackers before he was butchered outside the Zesarina Grocery at 11.40pm on Wednesday.

It came as his mother, Leandra Feliz, 48, described her son as a 'sweet' kid with no connections to gangs who had enrolled on an NYPD program to become a police officer.

'His dream in the future was to be a detective,' she told the New York Post. 'Since he was five years old, he told me, "Mommy, I want to be a police".'

The victim's brother in law Derek Grullon, 19, told the New York Daily News that he's received messages on Facebook from men claiming to be part of Trinitarios, a Dominican gang known for violence.

'They said, ‘We had the wrong person",' according to Grullon, who said his wife - the victim's sister - received similar messages.

She got a two-minute video mea culpa via Snapchat, he told the NY Post, in which the gang leader 'said they kicked all of them out of the gang.'

Upon getting the message, 'We cried', Grullon told the Post. 'He was innocent.'

According to the News, the sex tape that started the fracas showed one man rapping while another had sex with a woman whose face was covered in a shirt. It's not clear which of the two men Guzman-Feliz may have been mistaken for.

CCTV video posted by Facebook user Riichy Rich on Friday shows the pack of men forcibly dragging Guzman-Feliz by the hood of his jacket out of the bodega and frantically stabbing and slashing him with a machete before fleeing on foot.

After a few seconds, Guzman-Feliz is seen standing on the street corner with blood pouring from a wound in his neck.

He then runs across the street, heading towards the nearby St Barnabas Hospital.

According to police, the mortally wounded boy never reached the hospital and collapsed a block away.

Another extremely graphic video posted on social media by a different user shows Guzman-Feliz drenched in blood from head to toe, sitting on the sidewalk with his back against the wall.

A woman tries to apply pressure to his neck before police officers and paramedics surround him. Guzman-Feliz succumbed to his injuries at the scene.

Officers said with his dying breath, the 15-year-old asked for some water, according to ABC 7 New York.

Investigators said he had told his mother he was going to the bodega a block away from his house to either repay a debt, or lend $5 to a friend. He never made it home that night.

The victim's sister, Genesis Collado-Feliz, 17, said her younger brother loved playing video games and would come to her for advice about girls. She said Lesandro had recently become friends with a group of older boys, but she insisted he was not in a gang.

'He tried to run into the store because he thought he'd be safe. They dragged him from the store like a dog,' Collado-Feliz told the New York Post. 'They were grown men and he was only 15.'

Guzman-Feliz was a student at the Dr Richard Izquierdo Health and Science Charter School. News 12 The Bronx reported that he had aspired to become a police detective.

Police are searching for at least six suspects in connection to the vicious killing. They were last seen driving away in a white sedan and a dark sedan.