A Long Beach street vendor lives in fear after being attacked by a person while selling his snacks on Belmont Pier on Saturday, July 4, during Independence Day celebrations. Now he is asking the community for help to find whoever is responsible.

"I'm afraid, I'm afraid, because this person is still loose and I'm easy to find. What if he wants to attack me again?" says salesman Eliu Ramírez while sitting in the living room of his apartment.

When we visited him on Tuesday, the 51-year-old was wearing glasses to cover the injuries he was left with, which included a broken nose, a damaged cheekbone and a swollen and bruised right eye, unable to open.

"I wear glasses because the light hurts me; right now my whole face, my teeth, my nose, my ears hurt," said Ramírez, who sells bottled snow and skis.

According to the Long Beach entrepreneur, known on social media and to his clients as “El Sabroso,” the incident occurred around 7:30 p.m.

Although he normally sells in areas close to his neighborhood, that day he said he was passing by the pier, decided to use the bathroom, and when he came out, he already had customers who wanted to buy from him. It was then that he decided to serve the buyers and stay to sell for a while in that area.

“Not long before I started serving customers, a man came and told me that I had to move, that he didn't want me there,” Ramírez said. “I asked him who he was and he said he was the boss of the beach.”

Ramirez, who has been selling in Long Beach for years, told the man, pointing to a nearby officer, that if the officer told him to leave, he would be happy to do so; otherwise, he would stay, since other vendors around him were doing the same.]

“The man walked up to the police and they told him that I didn't have to move because I wasn't doing anything wrong,” Ramírez says. “And the man came back to me and told me that he was going to send someone to take me out.”

He said that a few moments later another man, who also spoke Spanish, approached him and asked: “The beach boss asked when you plan to leave?”, to which he responded that he was not going to leave. Ramírez said he didn't think much of it and continued serving customers while the man walked away. Shortly after, he says that a third man arrived, but this time he did not speak to him; He just started attacking him.

"When I felt the blow, I could no longer defend myself; I felt dizzy and I didn't fall to the ground because I held on to my sales cart, but I started bleeding immediately," Ramírez recalls. "It was something quick; there was no way to protect yourself."

According to Long Beach police, officers arrived at the pier around 7:56 p.m. and paramedics were able to treat Ramirez before his daughter took him to a hospital to be checked out.

Although it is the first time that he has been physically attacked, it is the third time that he has had problems when going out to sell. The first time was in 2021 when some young people threw all of his product on the ground while making racist comments. Then, on another occasion, they threatened him with a knife and stole his money for the day.

Ramírez says he can't confirm it, but believes there is some type of extortion from street vendors on the pier.

La Opinion contacted the Long Beach police, who reported that the investigation remains open and, for now, they cannot share more details.

The seller is the breadwinner for his family and said the last few days have been very difficult. He is the one who manages almost everything in the house and his business, and he is a very active person. Now he says he has to rest, not lift heavy things, he can't drive or work, which worries him.

“I can't see out of my left eye very well because I had an incident years ago that left me with little visibility in that eye, and the other one is completely closed due to the blow, so I'm almost blinded,” says Ramírez. “And you know that bills in this country wait for no one, and being alone here makes me a little uneasy.”

At the moment, they have created a GoFundMe account, where the community can donate to support him and his family while he recovers to return to work.

He says he did think about retiring before, but he always thinks about his clients and the connections he has cultivated with his clientele, who continue to support him to this day.

For his part, he asks the public, if they have any photos of what happened, to share them with him, since he has no way of identifying the three people who threatened him.

The seller had planned to attend the Long Beach council meeting yesterday afternoon to give his testimony and ask them for help, since he says the police have not yet contacted him since he made the report.

"While they are free, they can continue doing what they did to me, to other people, and that is not right and, the truth is, I feel afraid to go out on the street; I don't feel as confident as before," said Ramírez. “I would like this to stop, not only for me, but for my fellow street vendors, if they are being extorted or harassed for selling in that place.”

He also thanks everyone for their help, saying that he always does what he can to help others, like when he gives a snack to someone who doesn't have money, or when he helped raise funds for the family of a fellow salesman who died; He always helps without expecting anything in return.

“I am very grateful to everyone, I don't have enough words to thank you,” he said, trying to hold back his tears. “Thanks to you, my family and I do not feel alone right now.”

Donations for Ramírez can be made here: GoFundMe