PEMBROKE PINES, Fla. – Family, friends and teammates paid their final respects to 15-year-old Achilles Lopez, the teen police said was accidentally shot and killed by his stepmother at a Pembroke Pines home over the weekend.
Friends and loved ones of Lopez, a young soccer player, gathered at the Boyd-Panciera funeral home in Pembroke Pines Thursday for his viewing.
Loved ones consoled one another as Lopez’s soccer teammates arrived in their jerseys.
“He was a hardworking kid. He always had a dream of going far in soccer; he always wanted to play,” Miguel Sosa, Lopez’s friend and teammate, said. “When he went in, he went in with everything. He was really dedicated. He was a really good kid.”
Another friend of Lopez, present at the time of the shooting, told reporters earlier in the week he was so frightened over how Lopez’s stepmother, whom police have not publicly identified, was handling the gun that he left the house.
Several people told Local 10 News that Lopez’s stepmother was not present at the viewing. Police said they expect prosecutors to charge her with manslaughter.