Bronx Teen's Machete Murder Investigation Yields 13th Arrest

Police in New York City arrested another person suspected of being connected to the June murder of Bronx teen Lesandro “Junior” Guzman-Feliz.

Ronald Urena was arrested on Sunday evening, police said, and charged with murder, manslaughter, gang assault, conspiracy, and criminal possession of a weapon. He is the 13th suspect to be arrested in the case.

Guzman-Feliz was brutally murdered by reputed gang members, who, in what authorities believe was a case of mistaken identity, yanked him out of a bodega and proceeded to beat the 15-year-old and slash him to death with machetes.

The perpetrators are suspected to be members of the Trinitarios, a Dominican gang also suspected to be responsible for a similar attack on a 14-year-old in the middle of the Bronx River Parkway.

Recently, the NYPD has assured the public that they are actively pursuing and cracking down on the gang in the wake of these murders.

"Pick up a gun, pick up a machete, rob an elderly victim walking home from the train is a one-way ticket to prison," NYPD Chief of Detectives Dermot Shea said in late June, according to ABC 7 in New York.

Prior to Urena's arrest, police in Connecticut picked up Luis Cabrarasantos, 25, on July 9, during routine traffic enforcement in which state troopers scanned his license plate while he was driving on I-84, near Danbury, and found the vehicle was listed as belonging to a fugitive.

Junior's death has inspired an outpouring of support and grief. On Twitter and Instagram, a search for the hashtag #JusticeForJunior turns up hundreds of results. One of Guzman-Feliz’s relatives told the New York Daily News that a few Trinitarios members even direct messaged him on Facebook to apologize for the brutal murder.

But the victim’s mother, Leandra, has mourned the loss of her son, who she claims wanted to be a police officer when he was older.

“He has never been in any fight, never, in 15 years,” she told the Daily News in June. “He was innocent.”