NYC Orlando Shooting Victim Remembered as Giving and Religious Man

The 25-year-old home health care aide and college student from Brooklyn who was gunned down in the Pulse nightclub shooting was remembered at a viewing service Tuesday as a kind-hearted and religious man. 

Enrique Rios, 25, grew up in Bedford-Stuyvesant's Marcy Houses projects, and was most recently living with his grandmother and cousins in Bushwick. He was in Florida on vacation when he was fatally shot by gunman Omar Mateen in Orlando's Pulse nightclub. 

At the Greater Free Gift Baptist Church in Bedford-Stuyvesant Tuesday, Bishop William Whitaker remembered Rios and his entire family as forgiving and deeply religious people. 

"Our hearts bleed -- the entire church. We have prayed with his mom, his dad, sisters, brothers," Whitaker said.

Rios was one of five children and was studying for a degree in social work at St. Francis College in Brooklyn. 

As she mourned her son, Gertrude Merced urged that through her faith she could find a way to forgive Mateen.

"We really want the world to know even in times like this, there is room for forgiveness," she said.

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