Four street vendors are robbed by group
A surveillance camera captured South L.A. attack; a motive is unknown, police say.
A street vendor was beaten while preparing to sell fruit in South Los Angeles on Sunday morning, according to a GoFundMe page set up by his stepson.
A group of seven people — six men and one woman — robbed Pedro Daniel Reyes and three other vendors at 31st and San Pedro streets around 5 a.m., the Los Angeles Police Department said.
Reyes gave them his money, his stepson wrote on GoFundMe, “but they still brutally beat him.”
“His entire face was fractured, his jaw broken in three, his throat cut, and several teeth knocked out,” he said, adding that Reyes has no health insurance.
A surveillance camera at a building across the street captured the attack. The video shows four men, most wearing hoodies, casually turning onto 31st Street at around 5:11 a.m. and approaching the three street vendors who were setting up on the sidewalk on the north side of the road. One man keeps watch while another lookout stands across the street.
The men leave, but return followed by a silver car and a black SUV that park in the middle of the street. A female driver and a man exit the silver car while another man steps out of the SUV.
The surveillance footage shows one of the men punching a vendor. Two others start beating a second vendor. One hooded man runs over and helps two others hitting a third vendor, who rushes into the street but falls and lies on the ground, apparently unconscious.
Detectives who reviewed the video shortly after 10 a.m. Monday said the investigation is ongoing. They have not determined a motive for the attack.
Witness Carlos Salas told the detectives he didn’t see much because it happened so fast.
“I thought it was something from a movie [scene],” he said.
The 50-year-old had come to the area to buy bicycle parts from one of the vendors.
Residents said their neighborhood — which is lined with industrial buildings to the north and homes to the south — is quiet and there are rarely any problems.
Reyes was scheduled to have surgery Monday, according to the GoFundMe page. His stepson described the Oaxaca, Mexico, native as a hard worker who split his time working as a roofer and a fruit vendor.
“Doctors say his recovery will take at least six months and he will have to be fed with a straw,” his stepson wrote. “I know he wouldn’t want to ask for help, but I know he will really need it.”