‘There’s not one thing I’m not going to miss’: Portland teenager shot, killed in Gresham, OR

By DREW MARINE

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    GRESHAM, OR (KPTV) — Seneca Alexander Junior was a 17-year-old whose life was cut short – and if you ask his dad, Seneca Alexander Senior, he wasn’t like any other teenager.

“There’s not one thing I’m not going to miss. There was nothing mediocre or simple or plain about him. He was extraordinary. Just smart. Just my boy,” Alexander Sr. said. “He definitely could have been the president of this country.”

Alexander Jr.’s stepmom, Melissa Sfetku, said the same, describing him as a sweet boy who was very wise for his age.

“Junior was just always such a breath of fresh air. You could be so sad and down and his existence around you brought you that happiness and joy,” Sfetku said. “He didn’t care we weren’t blood. We loved each other just the same.”

Tuesday evening around 8 p.m. Gresham police responded to a report of gunfire near Northeast 9th Street and Hood Avenue. While they said they found evidence, they didn’t see a victim. Shortly after, they got a call about a car stopped about two miles away with someone hurt inside. It was Seneca Alexander Junior.

“I can’t even remember. Just, I mean, numb,” Alexander Sr. said.

Alexander Jr. was taken to the hospital, but died shortly after.

“I’m really going to miss seeing what he had to offer us. I’m really gonna miss that because he really had so much to offer,” Sfetku said.

Alexander Sr. said this should have never happened and it’s happening far too often in our area. That’s why he’s been trying to think of solutions to end gun violence, even before it claimed his son’s life.

“It’s a public health epidemic we’re dealing with. It needs a treatment program based on what’s going on in that family,” he said. “Helping them with jobs, money so they can have something to look forward to and exposure to people like Dame Lillard, people they look up to because it’s easy to engineer this out of them. It doesn’t have end up like what I’m going through.”

Crimestoppers of Oregon is offering up to $2,500 for any information that leads to an arrest. Alexander Jr.’s family also set up a GoFundMe.

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