Trinitarios: The Long History Of The Gang Tied To Bronx Stabbing

NEW YORK, NY — The brutal murder of Lesandro Guzman-Feliz, the innocent Bronx teenager stabbed to death last month, shocked New York City. But it's just one recent piece of the long history of violence perpetrated by the Trinitarios, the gang allegedly responsible for the crime.

Authorities have arrested 12 people in connection with Guzman-Feliz's June 20 slaying outside a Bronx bodega. News reports have indicated the killing was a case of mistaken identity — the attackers reportedly thought the 15-year-old, also known as Junior, was someone else.

While the teen's murder has gotten the most public attention, it's not the only crime to which the Trinitarios have been linked in recent months.

"There's been a number of other incidents throughout the city involving Trinitarios in general," NYPD Chief of Detectives Dermot Shea said at a June 29 news conference.

The gang was also reportedly involved in the broad-daylight stabbing of a 14-year-old boy on the Bronx River Parkway on June 18. One Trinitarios member allegedly "ordered a 'hit'" on the boy, who is in a rival gang, because of an argument between a female Trinitarios member and the teen's girlfriend, according to amNewYork.

The Trinitarios aren't confined to the Bronx. Sixteen-year-old Missael Alvarez of the Bronx, who's reportedly a member of the gang, was charged in the striking and stabbing of a 46-year-old man on the Upper East Side last month. And members of the 97th Street Trinitarios in Queens were among 18 people arrested in a drug and gun bust in May.

"They're responsible for numerous acts of violence in Queens and also heavy narcotics trafficking," NYPD Deputy Inspector Donald Boller said in May.

The Trinitarios' presence in New York goes back more than two decades.

Leonides "Junito" Sierra and two other people founded the Trinitarios on Rikers Island in 1992 to protect Dominican inmates there from other violent gang members, the Manhattan U.S. Attorney's Office has said. The gang spread through the prison system and onto the streets as its members were released, according to federal authorities.

"When Sierra created the Trinitarios Gang on Rikers Island in 1992, a dangerous and bloodthirsty organization was born, responsible for overwhelming violence both on the streets of New York and other cities, and inside the prison system," then-Manhattan U.S. Attorney Preet Bharara said in a 2014 statement.

The Trinitarios reportedly take their name from a group of revolutionaries who helped lead the Dominican Republic to independence from Haiti in the 19th century. Their weapon of choice is reportedly the machete — which police say was used in Guzman-Feliz's brutal killing.

A 2011 FBI report called the Trinitarios "the most rapidly-expanding Caribbean gang and the largest Dominican gang." Their biggest presence is in New York and New Jersey, the report said, but they've stretched to Massachusetts, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island and Georgia.

The gang's ranks have apparently numbered in the dozens or hundreds — in July 2014, the Manhattan U.S. Attorney's Office said it had charged at least 147 Trinitarios members and associates since 2009.

Growth in the Dominican population in the eastern U.S. caused Dominican gangs such as the Trinitarios to expand, leading to an uptick in robberies, drug trafficking and violent assaults in the "Tri-state area," the 2011 FBI report said.

Sierra ruled as the Trinitarios' national leader from New York State prisons, ordering acts of violence against other inmates and establishing a "Central Committee" to deliver his commands to leaders on the street, according to the Manhattan U.S. Attorney’s Office.

Sierra is currently serving 22 and a half years to life in state prison for a 1989 murder conviction, according to federal prosecutors and state records. He's set to have even more time behind bars — a federal judge sentenced him to 19 years in 2014 for his role as the Trinitarios leader, a term prosecutors then said will run consecutively to his state sentence.

The recent Trinitarios crimes, though, suggest Sierra's lengthy lockup hasn't stopped the gang's activity.

Some of the men charged in Guzman-Feliz's killing have reportedly needed protection in their gang's birthplace.

Earlier this month, eight men then in custody for the murder had been moved out of the general jail population because of death threats, according to the New York Post. Three of the alleged killers have been isolated in a Rikers Island unit meant to house 50 people, PIX11 reported earlier this month.

"Everybody wants a piece of them," a source told the Post.

(Lead image: The Trinitarios insignia. Image from Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms (ATF) / Government Handout)