A gang member who pleaded guilty for his role in last summer’s machete killing of a 15-year-old New York boy cried in court as he saw what he did to the teen when he sought refuge in a bodega.
From WPIX, Kevin Alvarez, 19, broke down on the witness stand after viewing surveillance footage shot inside the Bronx bodega on June 20, 2018. He recalled how Lesandro Guzman-Feliz tried to hide behind a small door before a deli worker instructed Alvarez and his group to “take it outside.”
“The kid was pushing the door, he was putting his behind — his shoulder — against it,” Alvarez said of Guzman-Feliz. “He’s saying, ‘Stop!’ He didn’t have nothing to do with what we were saying.”
Despite his pleas, Alvarez said he punched the terrified teen in the face and body before kicking him several times. Alvarez claimed he dragged him out of the bodega under another gang member’s instruction when he saw Jose Muniz, 21, wielding a machete.
“He grabbed like this rack on the floor holding chips and he grabbed onto the door and the fridge,” he recounted, according to WPIX.
Alvarez also detailed the moments when Guzman-Feliz was beaten and hacked to death with a machete and kitchen knife. He then identified the five men filmed partaking in the fatal bodega attack.
“[He] kept fighting back,” Alvarez said.
Alvarez is one of 14 men who are facing charges in connection with the 2018 slaying. Alvarez has pleaded guilty and has become a witness for the prosecution, testifying against Muniz.
The suspects, reportedly members of the Sures set of the Trinitarios gang, targeted the teen as they believed he was affiliated with a rival gang responsible for shooting one of their members two days earlier. However, police have said the teen’s murder was the result of mistaken identity.
[Featured image: Lesandro Guzman/Facebook]
