Neighbors in Moreno Valley came together to help take down three people who they say robbed and attacked their neighborhood street vendor.
This is the latest in a string of violence targeting vendors in the past several months.
Video from a Ring camera captured his yells for help that went on for nearly a minute. The popular street vendor, known as Fernando, alerted a Moreno Valley neighborhood he had just been robbed and attacked.
Carlos Franco's Ring doorbell caught Fernando’s distress.
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“He was in panic, he was just maced, and he was like, ‘Help me, help me! They just robbed me,’” Franco said.
Franco then ran out to help track down the three young men who Fernando told neighbors had robbed him of $800 on Sunday evening near Hastings Drive and Greenlawn Avenue.
“All of a sudden, I heard yelling. I was like, what the heck is that?” another neighbor said.
The vendor’s calls for help worked. Soon, the entire neighborhood was out.
Neighbors said they spotted the three robbers before deputies arrested them, an 18-year-old, and two juveniles.
“It was an awesome feeling to know that the neighborhood was behind him. He’s a street vendor, but he’s a part of our community,” Franco said.
Community advocates say they are seeing an increase in attacks and also seeing more people documenting the attacks, but not enough is being done to protect the vendors.
In a video from a robbery in Boyle Heights last month, a longtime street vendor was randomly stabbed in a vicious attack.
The community came together to help fund his recovery, the same way the neighborhood in Moreno Valley stood behind the vendor.
“We don’t want this to happen to any of our vendors or people around us. It could be Mexican, Black, White, whatever... Asian, we love our people. We just have to take care of our neighbors and our family,” resident, Monica said.
