Bronx District Attorney Darcel Clark says that her office is working to seek justice after an increase in deadly crimes last year. 

Statistics released by the NYPD show a 14-percent increase in sexual assaults throughout the Bronx over the last 12 months. It also shows that homicides are up 25 percent.  A teenager shot to death, a triple shooting in broad daylight and a woman's dismembered remains discovered in a park were just some of the 90 reported homicides in the borough last year.

“Unfortunately and I always say this and I don't like to say this, the Bronx, you know is always first in everything that's bad and last in everything that's good, and I want to do all that I can to change that narrative,” says Clark.

So far, Clark says, 61 people are facing charges in connection to those killings.

“I can tell you that we have the highest clearance rate in the city, that's a decent result, and we hope to bring justice to those families as a result of that,” says Clark.

Among those 61 defendants  are 14 men connected to a single case - seeking justice for Junior.  The suspects are alleged members of the Trinitarios and were captured on camera outside a Belmont bodega. The murder of Lesandro Guzman-Feliz shocked people around the globe with this firsthand look at the gruesome brutalities of gang violence and put renewed pressures on prosecutors to crack down.

Clark says one of the goals in 2019 is to focus more on the gangs, see where they are recruiting, see where the crimes are being committed and focus on more enforcement in those areas. Additional goals include
bringing more reforms to the criminal justice system, building on policies and programs that allow low-level marijuana users and high-risk heroin addicts, to avoid convictions, providing more alternatives to incarceration for offenders who qualify and educating the community on the importance of sharing what they know.