The mother of a 15-year-old Bronx boy killed in a vicious 2018 gang slaying said Saturday she’s backing ex-Gov. Andrew Cuomo for mayor because he’s best qualified to clean up Gotham’s crime-ridden streets.
“I don’t want to see any more parents losing their children,” Leandra Feliz, mother of the late Lesandro “Junior” Guzman-Feliz, exclusively told The Post when asked why she supports Cuomo.
“You know, with this crime in the city, we need somebody to make changes. We need it.”
Two dozen members of the “Trinitarios” street gang were busted in the shocking June 20, 2018, caught-on-video attack on the teenager at a Belmont bodega, in what authorities said was a case of mistaken identity.
The heartbroken mom appeared with Cuomo at a Bronx news conference to reflect on her son’s death seven years later.
Cuomo — the frontrunner heading into Tuesday’s Democratic mayoral primary — promoted himself as a law-and-order candidate while painting socialist Queens Assemblyman Zohran Mamdani, who is polling second behind him, as a “Defund The Police” radical.
Cuomo — who’s vowed to hire 5,000 more cops if mayor — also claimed he’s the best candidate because “experience matters, qualifications matter.”
The event bizarrely included Cuomo unveiling large images of Mamdani social media posts from 2020 demanding the City Council defund cops.
“We need to elect a socialist city council to defund the NYPD,” read a Mamdani tweet in October 2023 Cuomo used as a prop.
Leandra Feliz’ home is a monument to her lost teen, with his smiling face depicted everywhere, from artwork hung on the walls to a throw pillow.
She keeps the jacket Junior wore as an NYPD Explorer framed on the wall, next to shirt in a frame with her son’s name and the phrase, “Gone, but not forgotten.”
“Nobody feels safe in New York. … Everybody’s scared. Nobody feels safe,” she said. “So we need to do something to stop the violence, stop the crimes. We need help. And this is not for me. This is for everybody.
“I don’t want to see any more parents losing their children.”
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