[dropcap size=big]T[/dropcap]here are many things street vendors are known for but their drive to make a living has to be at the top of the list. As @FoosGoneWild on Instagram likes to say, their “hustle is unmatched.” Whether they sell food, your favorite snacks, or flowers, they are out there in every corner putting in work every day.
Yet they continue to be the number one targets for some of the most heinous attacks. Just last week communities in Fresno mourned the death of a beloved elotero named Lorenzo Perez. The street vendor was shot and killed in broad daylight by a man posing as a customer.
Exactly one week to the day of Perez’s death another attack happened in Bakersfield. Only this time onlookers took action and stepped in to help the vendor who was selling flowers on his own.
On Sunday, March 28, as Itzell Baez and her family were driving near Rosedale Highway, they noticed what they described to Fox11 as a man harassing a flower vendor. In the video Baez's mother, Miriam tells her husband to pull over as she is recording the altercation. Her mother gets out of the car and immediately yells out to the man, “That’s enough! You're not going to be doing this.”
@miriamacuarioparte 1 de tanta molestia mia que olvide que estaba grabando ##viral ##paltiktok ##latinostiktok ##ayudemos♬ original sound - Miriam
The mother continues to tell the aggressor who was panhandling in that same corner, that the flower vendor Felicitó Chávez was simply working and doing his job. The man flipped off Baez’s mother before walking towards one of the black buckets where Chávez kept his flower bouquets and tossed them to the ground.
“You’re asking for money, but he is working,” Baez's mother told the man who is seen wearing a striped tank top and jeans. “Get your flowers, nobody is gonna do nothing,” she tells Chávez.
Eventually, other pedestrians who were driving by got out of their cars and chased the man away. Baez and her family stayed to make sure the man was arrested by police, but by the time police arrived the man had left.
Chávez told the family that he has had his backpack and ID stolen in the past and showed the family bruises on his body from the attack.
The Baez family has since set up a GoFundMe account for anyone who wants to donate or support Chávez.
