Leslie Pena
Age 14
Allentown, Pennsylvania
Lucky number 20, unlucky number 13
She dreamed of playing basketball overseas in Spain and going to college. On Lady Elite Basketball’s national team, she played as a forward with the uniform number 20.
She lived in Allentown, Pennsylvania, a community rooted in history as the hiding place of the Liberty Bell during the Revolutionary War. Yet in the recent past, Allentown had become a community entangled in America’s epidemic of gun violence. In the first 10 months of 2018, 12 people had been killed by guns.
Leslie Pena, 14, was number 13. She was shot in her home on Nov., 6, 2018 and pronounced dead at Lehigh Valley Hospital-Cedar Crest.
