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When T-shirt maker Fernando “Spider” Betancourt learned about how a fruit vendor was violently robbed in Central Long Beach last month, it was the final straw for him.
The victim, 22-year-old Gerardo Ivan Olmeda Del Pilar, was beaten for his week’s worth of pay, and Betancourt became so angered that it compelled him to do something.
“It just infuriated me,” he said, who was a former street vendor.
Within a week of the incident, Betancourt, with help from a local artist, produced new T-shirts that read “Defend Vendors” and “Love of the Streets” in Spanish, and is using the money from the sales to donate to street vendors in need.
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Police are looking for two men who beat and robbed a man selling fruit out on the corner of Long Beach Boulevard and Burnett Street in Long Beach on Saturday afternoon, authorities said.
The victim, 22-year-old Gerardo Ivan Olmeda Del Pilar, said he was punched in the face just after 3 p.m. without warning after the two men approached and initially asked for fruit. The victim said the men then began beating him, took his wallet and ran off with $500, a week’s worth of pay, he said.
The two suspects left him with a swollen left eye and bumps on his forehead and side of his head, he said, adding that he thinks the men tried to knock him unconscious.