MIAMI LAKES, FLA. (WSVN) - A street vendor who was caught on camera whacking a pickup truck with a thick wooden board in Miami Lakes is talking exclusively to 7News about what drove him to lash out.
It was an ugly fight at the stoplight with glass flying from a shattered window, as the street vendor gave a truck a beating with a wooden board, even taking jabs at the people inside.
Someone sitting in traffic caught the encounter on camera, which was first published by OnlyinDade.
“Every day around 3, they pass by here and bother me just like that,” said the vendor, who only wanted to be identified as Javier.
He was the guy in the video, and he said on Thursday, he was pushed to the breaking point.
“They bother me every day,” said the vendor. “Every day continuously I tell him, ‘Stop that.’ I’m here trying to survive and make some money.”
He’s a regular at the intersection of Red Road and Northwest 167th Street, pounding the pavement in Miami Lakes ona daily basis with his arms full of fruit and flowers.
He’s been working the area for about two years and said he’s never had a problem.
“No, I’m not that kind of person. This is my customers. I love this,” Javier said.
For the past three weeks, however, he said two men in a truck have made a daily stop here to taunt him and call him names, but Javier claimed, Thursday’s encounter went beyond that when one of the men pulled out a knife.
“He called me an [expletive] and showed me the [expletive] knife, and I said, ‘OK, no, no, [expletive],’ and that’s it, you know?” he said. “He got a knife; I got a piece of wood.”
In the video, he uses that wood to bash the truck’s windshield, then he moves to the side of the truck, hitting the door and thrusting the board through the window.
“And then I think the green light come, and then they, boom, disappeared,” said Javier.
Nobody called police, Javier returned to his usual spot on Friday, and for the first time in a long time, he didn’t have to deal with the guys in the truck.
“I wish nothing else happen, but I’m ready. I’m here. I got to be here. I’m not going to run to nobody.”
Police said a report was never filed about the damage to the truck, so there’s no way for 7News to identify or reach out to the other men involved.
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