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Read the press release here.

Murdered East Harlem Teen Was Marked For Death, Mom Says

By Gustavo Solis | September 19, 2017 10:09am
 Police are offering a $2,500 reward for anyone who helps them find the person who killed a 17-year-old in East Harlem.
Lewis Encarnacion
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EAST HARLEM — Lewis Encarnacion, the 17-year-old shot and killed in El Barrio last week, knew someone wanted him dead, according to his mother.

“He told me that morning, before he went to school,” said Belkis Perdomo, Encarnacion’s mother. “He told me, ‘I didn’t want to worry you but some kids want to kill me.’”

The Heritage high school student told his mother he would report the threat to the local police precinct but Encarnacion never got around to it, Pedromo, 41, added.

He did not tell his mother who wanted him dead, only that "Johnson kids want to kill me," Perdomo said, in what she believed was a reference to people who live in the Johnson Houses, a public housing complex that stretches from East 112th Street to East 115th Street between Park and Third avenues.

No arrests have been made since the Sept. 13, shooting at Park Avenue and 110th Street. The NYPD is offering $2,500 for information regarding the homicide.

READ MORE: Classmates Mourn 'Funny, Goofy Kid' Shot to Death in East Harlem

On Monday afternoon, Pedromo joined Rev. Vernon Williams for an anti-violence rally at Park Avenue near where Encarnacion was shot.

Williams, an anti-gun violence advocate, challenged those who know who the shooter is to report it anonymously, adding that those who don’t are helping someone get away with murder.

“If they won’t give up the shooter they are protecting the man who murdered Lewis,” Williams said.

Perdomo also called for her son’s killer to be brought to justice, asking parents who may be protecting their children to call the police.

“Today it is my child but tomorrow it could be their child,” she said. “If he has the nerve to kill a child, he will kill anybody.”