Residents Respond To Killing Of Leiby Kletzky
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The Borough Park community is reeling after the brutal killing of the young Leiby Kletzky, who was first reported missing earlier this week and later found dismembered. NY1’s Vivian Lee filed the following report.At the Kletzky family’s Borough Park home, Leiby’s grieving grandmother did not speak to reporters as she and a relative rushed inside.
Out on the street, neighbors wept openly at the news that the eight-year-old might have been killed by someone he asked for help.
"A child, he didn't do anything to anyone, he's just a little kid," said one resident.
A few miles away in Kensington, the neighborhood where police say they found some of the boy's remains stored in Levi Aron's refrigerator, residents reacted with understandable shock.
“I don't understand how such a thing happened,” said a bystander.
At the day camp where Leiby was last seen on Monday, grief counselors were brought in. Workers there said that their policy for dismissing children has not changed.
Nevertheless, there was horror all around at how the little boy was found.
“It’s an unbelievable thing, can't think of it, couldn't even come to the mind, that a thing like this somebody would make, would make a thing like this,” said one man.
There's renewed urgency among parents now to teach children that no stranger, even a familiar one, can be trusted.
“I'm going to speak with my kids and keep educating them, but children are so naïve and so innocent and so trusting, I don’t think that there’s anything that could have been prevented,” said one woman. “Even if they look familiar, they're all strangers.”
Local Assemblyman Dov Hikind said Leiby's death is a warning for a neighborhood that is widely regarded as being extremely safe.
"We don't want to destroy someone's trust, their innocence, but when something like this can happen to a nine-year-old child by someone in this community, that is a wake-up call," said Hikind.
There were others in the community who empathized with a mother's desire to help her young son take his first few steps of independence by walking through his neighborhood alone.
They say they might have allowed the same thing, with no thought to the risks.