After being assaulted in downtown Los Angeles last month, Arabelia Martinez Garcia Monday encouraged other street vendors like herself to come forward and report crimes to authorities if they’ve been victims of violence.
During a morning news conference Monday morning outside of City Hall, 62-year-old Martinez Garcia urged her fellow street vendors to speak out if they’ve been victimized. She added that there’s power in community.
“Take me as an example. We are all human beings, and we are here to do our job. All street vendors have the dignity to work here. We can all make a change,” said Martinez, who gave her remarks in Spanish.
“Everyone here has dignity and should be able to work with freedom in this country,” Martinez added.
Martinez Garcia, who has been a street vendor since 1996, was joined by family members, Los Angeles County District Attorney Nathan Hochman, and other city and county representatives, as well as members of local organizations.
She took the opportunity to also thank first responders for helping her after she was attacked on June 15, following an argument with a woman at her vending cart near Seventh and Figueroa streets.
“It’s been heartbreaking for me to see my mom suffer,” Martinez Garcia’s son, Constantino, said. “To the victims I say, it’s OK to be scared. God will hold you by the hand and guide you through this whole process.”
Contantino added that his mother continues to experience health issues such as headaches and pain throughout her body, and emotional trauma.
Hochman said his office is still investigating whether a hate crime allegation will be presented in the case against the 19-year-old woman accused of attacking Martinez Garcia.
“They got into an argument, a very loud argument,” Hochman said during the news conference. “Now in our society, if you want to argue over fruit or hot dogs, that’s fine. But what you cannot do … is engage in acts of assault.”
The assault was caught on video and circulated on social media.
Harmunie Heaven Church was charged on June 29 with assault by means of force likely to produce great bodily injury, battery with serious bodily injury and vandalism causing $400 of more in damage.
Constantino said previously that the suspect was harassing his mother, saying she had no legal right to be a street vendor and telling her to go back to Mexico, among other racially charged statements.
According to a GoFundMe campaign launched by Constantino, his mother was “physically and emotionally shaken” as a result of the pummeling she received, and her hot dog cart and equipment were damaged.
Video showed part of the altercation, during which the suspect apparently squirted some kind of sauce on the vendor’s hot dogs and cart, prompting Martinez to toss a powdery substance at the suspect. A physical altercation ensues in which Martinez Garcia is eventually thrown to the ground, and the woman is seen repeatedly striking the vendor — as some bystanders attempt to intervene and eventually pull her away.
On TikTok, a woman claiming to be the other combatant in the fight denied using any racial slurs toward Martinez Garcia or asking about her right to be a street vendor. The woman — who is Black — claimed it was the vendor who instigated the confrontation by refusing to sell her food.
“When I walked up to her, I had money,” the woman says in a series of TikTok videos. “She told me, `Me no serve your people.’ So yes, I retaliated, and I put Chamoy on her hot dogs. But I did nothing physical to her, to her physically, to her. Maybe to her belongings, but not to her. She physically attacked me first.”
The woman claims the vendor threw Tajin powder at her, which felt like pepper spray in her eyes.
“You thought I was just going to sit there and let her throw Tajin on me?” the woman says.
“I had no intentions on hurting her or attacking her,” the woman says. “… But after she threw Tajin and attacked me, like what, I was just supposed to walk away with Tajin on my face, my eyes burning? No, I’m not doing that.”
She also questioned why the video of the altercation was only posted online recently, suggesting the vendor and her family were using the incident to make money through the GoFundMe page.
“They are using this as a platform to make more money,” she said.
As of Monday, the GoFundMe page had raised more than $145,000, nearing a goal of $150,000 set by the family.