Vigil for man killed in robbery attempt near his home

Many of the people at Saturday's vigil for Geremias Caceres, killed last month during an attempted robbery steps from his Huntington Station home, barely knew him.

They said they came because their neighborhood doesn't feel safe anymore.

"I heard the shots," said Osman Canales, 21, who said he lives near the Caceres' home. "I'm a member of the community, and I'm really worried for our protection."

About 20 people stood in a bitter cold on the side of New York Avenue Saturday afternoon. Among them were schoolteachers, community activists and friends of Caceres' 17-year-old son.

They stood in silence, wearing blank expressions and holding signs in English and Spanish calling for justice. Canales passed out candles in small plastic foam cups.

"None of this will bring Geremias back," said Blanca Caceres, his widow, in Spanish as a family friend, Ivonne Perix, translated. "We don't want any more violence. I don't want it to ever happen again."

Police and prosecutors say Caceres and his 17-year-old son were confronted by three men near their home just before 10 p.m. on Jan. 24.

They say the men ordered Caceres and his son to get on the ground, but that Caceres refused, and was shot.

The man charged as the gunman, Ralph Guerrier, 24, and an alleged accomplice, Gni Brown, 18, both of Huntington Station, have pleaded not guilty. The third man remains at large.

"They didn't just kill anybody," Blanca Caceres said in Spanish. "He was a man of God. A man of his family."

Also at the vigil were two teachers from Walt Whitman High School, where Caceres' son is a student.

One, Barbara Haik, who works with Spanish-speaking students, said Caceres' death affected many of them. She said she has heard of students being robbed or seeing drug dealers near their homes. "It's getting worse and worse in the neighborhood," she said.

Perix said hundreds of people attended a memorial service for Caceres in his Westbury church, where he had played bass in the band.

"It's touched everyone," she said. "They [the family] are known by people from all over. . . . We have to look beyond color, beyond nationality. We should all be able to live our lives." With Carl MacGowan