Kensington Community Mourns as City’s Homicides at 32

J. Smith-El Hispano

    Philadelphia - Lo que parece ser, una represalia por cooperar con la investigación policial del 24 de noviembre es el asesinato de la Sra. Aguirre. Reyna Aguirre Alonso, nacida en Veracruz, México recibió cuatro disparos mientras se encontraba detrás del mostrador del Caribe Mercado en Kensington, el pasado lunes, por un homre con un pasamontañas y una camisa gris.

   “Fue directamente a su objectivo y solo su ejecucion,” dijo el capitan James Clark del Departamento de Policía de Filadelfia.

    A Mexican flag billowed  in a chilly wind outside Fifth Street’s Compagnola Funeral Home, as friends, former neighbors and a few public officials gathered to bid a solemn farewell to Reyna Aguirre Alonso. The former employee of the Caribe Mini-market in Kensington and a Mexican Restaurant, who was killed last Monday, was described by one neighbor as “wonderful, courageous and strong” and someone who “loved music.”  Ms. Aguirre Alonso returned at the conclusion of the services to her family and home in Veracruz, Mexico.

    Standing outside the funeral home, Faustino Quintanilla recalled Ms. Aguirre Alonso’s  living in a Fifth street apartment and working at a local Mexican eatery.

     “She was a very good person,” said Ms. Quintanilla, a sentiment that was echoed repeated by other friends and neighbors. “But I wish the police had taken more care,” 

    In what appears likely to have been a reprisal for cooperating with police in the investigation of a November 24th shooting, Ms. Reyna Aguirre-Alonso, a native of Veracruz, Mexico, was shot four times as she stood behind the register of the Caribe Mini-Market in Kensington, last Monday, by a man donning a ski mask and a grey hooded sweat shirt.

     The gunman, a suspect in a prior homicide, entered the store -where Ms. Aguirre typically worked a twelve hours day- at around 7:40 p.m. Ignoring two other employees, the gunman went directly behind the counter and shot the twenty-nine year old at point-blank range.

    Taking nothing from the cash register, the perpetrator then fled on foot. Homicide Capt. James Clark said at a Tuesday press conference characterized the shooting as an “execution.” “He went directly to his target and just executed her,” said Capt. Clark.

     Living alone above the store located on the 3300 block of Mutter and Westmoreland for the last two years, Ms. Aguirre-Alonso had witnessed the Nov. 26th shooting of Louis Chevere from her apartment window, and had subsequently been taken to police headquarters to peruse mug shots.

   “The police should have taken better care of her,” said Luis Sanabria, a neighbor who remembered Ms. Aguirre Alonso as “a very nice working-class girl.”

   “The police picked her up here and everybody in the neighborhood could see it,” added Mr. Sanabria, referring to her assistance in identifying the gunman in the prior shooting. “ I guess she doesn’t live in the right zip code.”

   “She was always a nice and joyful person,” said Cindy Gonzalez, a neighbor on the block of Thayer. “She didn’t deserve that.”

   Hurriedly walking in front of the Caribe mini-market, a woman in her mid-sixties who declined to give her name, recalled Ms. Aguirre Alonso as someone “who always had time to say hello and talk.” 

   “She was a very good person, and everybody is in mourning for her.”

 “All I want is for my street to be the way it was when I moved here thirty years ago,” added the woman.

    In an interviews with 6ABC’s Dan Cuellar and the Inquirer, family members spoke of Ms. Aguirre’s “fears” and that “She was afraid to speak,” about the November shooting she witnessed.

   On Friday, New York city police apprehended Jorge ‘J Rock” Aldea, 22, of Philadelphia, he will likely be charged in the killings of Louis Chevere and that of Ms. Aguirre-Alonso.

  Outside the store’s girded front door a memorial-altar of candles, flowers, stuffed animals and a large Mexican flag were clustered around messages of remembrance in Spanish and English.

    The Family established a fund to assist in raising the necessary $6,000 for her return to Mexico, and that TD Bank account is: “Benefit Reyna Aguirre-Alonso.”