Investigators believe that attackers could have mistaken Lesandro Guzman-Feliz, 15, for a man in an online sex video involving a relative of one of the attackers before he was killed in the Bronx, New York.
The 15-year-old, who was dragged out of a small grocery shop 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 police — and now gang leaders are apologising via social media.
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,'” Grullon claims, even as he said that his wife, who is the victim’s sister, also received similar messages.
“Upon getting the message, we cried,” Grullon said; adding, “He was innocent.”
His mother, Leandra Feliz, 48, described her son as a ‘sweet’ kid with no connections to gangs and who had enrolled on a New York Police Department programme to become a police officer.
According to reports, 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 grocery shop and frantically stabbing and slashing him with a machete before fleeing on foot.
Video screenshot of Lesandro Guzman-Feliz being dragged out of the shop
Video screenshot of Lesandro Guzman-Feliz being dragged out of the shop
After a few seconds, Guzman-Feliz is seen standing on the street corner with blood pouring from a wound on 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.
Investigators said he had told his mother he was going to the shop a block away from his house to either repay a debt, or lend $5 to a friend. He never made it home that night.
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