As a 16-year-old boy was charged with fatally shooting an 8-year-old girl in Little Village, the child’s mother said she has already forgiven the suspect and called him a victim, too.
“To the aggressor, I forgive you,” Araceli Leanos said in a statement read at a news conference announcing the charges in the murder of Melissa Ortega. “You were a victim, too. As a 16-year-old, the community failed you, just like it failed my precious baby.
