LOS ANGELES — An unsettling incident occurred in downtown Los Angeles where a street vendor suffered an attack while working at her stand—a confrontation that was captured entirely on video.
In a video shared on Instagram on Sunday, a dispute between a woman and the street vendor is depicted. The footage reveals the woman pouring hot sauce over the vendor’s hot dogs, provoking the vendor to retaliate by throwing a red powder at her. The situation rapidly escalated into a physical confrontation.
As the altercation unfolds, the video shows the woman advancing towards the vendor, who tries to avoid her. Both end up on the ground, with the woman delivering punches to the back of the vendor’s head, as captured in the video.
Witnesses at the scene attempted to intervene and stop the violence. As the vendor was assisted back to her feet and tried to leave the area, the video reveals the woman once again attacking—striking the vendor’s head and face before dragging her to the ground by her hair.
Eventually, several bystanders successfully managed to intervene, stopping the assault as the woman made an attempt to attack the vendor for a third time.
A GoFundMe page set up by the victim’s son identifies the street vendor as Arabelia Martinez.
“A beautiful, hardworking street vendor in downtown Los Angeles,” the page’s description says. “My mom has dedicated herself to her work every single day, rain or shine, to provide for our family. She is one of the most resilient and loving people I know, and no one deserves what happened to her. The assault not only left her physically and emotionally shaken, but also resulted in damage to the items she works so hard to maintain.”
Funds raised will go toward Arabelia’s therapy and recovery while giving her time off from work to heal and will help replace damaged items from her stand. Her cart, which is her livelihood, was damaged in the attack.
The LAPD is investigating the incident.
The victim’s family says race may have been a factor. The longtime street vendor’s son says the unidentified woman began harassing his mother as she sold food near Figueroa and 7th streets, telling her to go back to Mexico and making racist comments.
Sebastian Gutierrez, who delivers for Uber Eats, says he couldn’t believe what happened.
“It was horrible. It really made me angry, myself, witnessing that. Worse than a lot of the others. I’ve seen other times people getting attacked, and what not here, but that really, it just feels so wrong. It’s just like, there’s no reason to be doing that at all,” Gutierrez said.
Gutierrez added that the woman appeared to have mental health issues or be under the influence.
“And then I see her suddenly push over all of the items of at least one of these vendor stands. Dozens of fruit cups, an entire hot dog cart,” said Gutierrez.
Police continue searching for the suspect.
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