{"id":226605,"date":"2026-06-24T07:18:15","date_gmt":"2026-06-24T07:18:15","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/226605\/"},"modified":"2026-06-24T07:18:15","modified_gmt":"2026-06-24T07:18:15","slug":"community-mourns-death-of-teenager-shot-in-reading-berks-regional-news","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/226605\/","title":{"rendered":"Community mourns death of teenager shot in Reading | Berks Regional News"},"content":{"rendered":"

READING, Pa. \u2014 How quickly a city street corner can change.\u00a0What once was an unassuming corner in Reading now serves as a makeshift memorial for a 16-year-old boy who died days after\u00a0being shot in the 1000 block of Spring Street.<\/p>\n

“Christian was my best friend. We met in school,” said Lesly Simons, a friend of the victim. “He was a very sweet person, kind, always knew how to make us laugh, always had the right things to say.”<\/p>\n

Now, a passerby blesses himself, balloons blow in the late summer breeze, and the young man’s family and friends cry.<\/p>\n

“This wasn’t fair the way they left him laying down right there,” said friend Bryan Tejada. “He doesn’t deserve that at all.”<\/p>\n

“I watched him grow up,” Jonathan Torres said. “It’s crazy that someone took his life so soon.”<\/p>\n

According to the police, a second student was shot but escaped with non-life-threatening injuries. Police said the two young men were targeted.<\/p>\n

Berks County District Attorney John Adams said someone knows why and he or she needs to come forward.<\/p>\n

\"Vigiil<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

Tom Rader | 69 News<\/p>\n

“If not, this violence is gonna continue,” Adams said, “and it’s going to make the neighborhoods that many people live in basically uninhabitable.”<\/p>\n

Yet another city street corner takes on greater significance, and a friend makes a plea.<\/p>\n

“Put the guns down,” Simons said. “That’s all I have to say. There’s no reason for violence, ’cause it’s all unnecessary.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"READING, Pa. \u2014 How quickly a city street corner can change.\u00a0What once was an unassuming corner in Reading…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":226606,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11],"tags":[98344,1055,98343,98342,736,128,130,129,35733,13326],"class_list":["post-226605","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-reading","tag-bryan-tejada","tag-john-adams","tag-jonathan-torres","tag-lesly-simons","tag-reading","tag-reading-city","tag-reading-city-headlines","tag-reading-city-news","tag-reading-shooting","tag-spring-street"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/226605","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=226605"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/226605\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/226606"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=226605"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=226605"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=226605"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}