After the Dodgers won the World Series on Wednesday night, Gerardo Flores and his father were excited to hit the streets with their small vending cart to sell bacon-wrapped hot dogs and celebrate their hometown heroes with hundreds of other fans in Echo Park.
“It was fun, man,” Flores told L.A. TACO, after the Los Angeles Police Department (LAPD) ended the lively celebrations. “All we were doing [was] putting on low music and selling food, and that’s it. Everybody was having a good time.”
Things took a turn later in the night after a Metro bus was tagged inside and out, and a fireworks explosion inside the bus engulfed the vehicle in flames.
“There were already cop cars forming up on one side of the street,” Flores explained. “We were right here next to the Bank of America, minding our business. You know my dad's a food vendor. He was just trying to make a little money.”
Flores felt that he and his father were at a safe distance from the ruckus. Then they started hearing loud “bangs” go off.
“But not like firework bangs, just loud bangs as if [police] threw a grenade,” Flores said. “And then afterward, for an instant, I get a pain in my neck towards my right shoulder, and then I just look at it, and I’m bleeding excessively.”
In a state of shock, Flores said he ran to his car for safety before realizing that an LAPD projectile had also hit his father.
“He got hit in the head, too,” the son said.
After being treated by paramedics, Flores said his father “was lucky he had a hat on” because if he didn’t, the projectile “would have cracked open his skull and he would have probably lost consciousness.”
After being hit, his father started “losing blood excessively,” Flores recalled, still in a state of shock. Instead of rendering aid to his father, Flores said police kept “aiming the guns at us again.”
“They were trying to tell us to back away,” Flores continued. “We were trying to let them know we’re hurt and not trying to have any problems. But they simply weren’t trying to cooperate with us.”
Afterward, Flores called 911. Later, L.A. TACO observed firefighters speaking with and treating Flores and his father.
Flores said the paramedics told them they were both in stable enough condition to drive themselves to the nearest hospital.
“So, at this time, we’re just going to put our stuff away in our car and just try and calm down,” Flores explained after the paramedics left. “But as soon as we’re done with all of this, we’re going to head straight to the hospital, see what’s going on with ourselves, and see if we’re going to be good.”
Flores showed L.A. TACO a bloody, golf ball-sized abrasion on his right shoulder as well as scrapes along the right side of his neck. He said his father’s head was “really hurting bad” after he took a foam projectile to the dome.
Afterwards, Flores, who said he doesn’t “trust the police,” reluctantly approached LAPD officers with a firefighter.
“I told them that one of your guys shot me and my dad with a pellet gun,” he said. “And all they said was they didn’t have any pellet guns. So whatever it was that they shot us with, we got shot with it, and instead of [acknowledging that], they just stayed quiet.”
In addition to being shot with so-called “less-than-lethal” munitions, Flores’ father’s food cart was damaged when it was knocked over in the melee.
“The cart was knocked over by the police,” Flores said. “They were trying to move it away, and then they just knocked it over.”
Flores pointed to caramelized onions, seared jalapeños, and hot dogs on the pavement on the southeast corner of Echo Park and Sunset Boulevards.
“All of that right there is residue from it,” he said.
“Imagine if we were to go up to their cop cars and just vandalize it,” Flores imagined. “They’re not gonna like that. So why did they do that to us? I mean, we weren’t doing anything [wrong].”
“The real problem was where the bus was at,” Flores said, referring to the Metro bus that went up in flames. “Instead of just handling where the bus was at and avoiding a situation, they waited until it escalated to the point where the bus started exploding.”
Flores said it felt like the cops were “waiting for a big explosion” to do something.
Then, “they decided to let loose on everybody,” he said.
In a statement to L.A. TACO, LAPD Officer Drake Madison responded with a general statement about the night but did not address the street vendors being hit by a non-lethal bullet deployed by LAPD.
"There were several incidents of unruly, and at times violent and hostile celebrations, resulting in" 12 arrests for failure to disperse, receiving stolen property and commercial burglary. There were also "several acts of vandalism and looting in Downtown LA and Echo Park area, including the burning of a MTA bus" as well as "street takeovers." Detectives are investigating these alleged crimes, Madison said.
"Less-lethal munitions were deployed for crowd control on several hostile and violent crowds," Madison said.
Grimacing in pain, holding his injury, Flores compared the LAPD’s response to the video game Grand Theft Auto.
“As they were trying to push away people, a lot of the police officers were just having a good time, you know? Shooting people, telling them to leave… this wasn’t just one person speaking out of their voice. This was on the intercom in a megaphone.”
“They were all just having a good time, pushing everybody, shooting people and dropping them to the floor,” Flores said.
