Watch Mexicans Respond to Street Vendor Hate Crime in the Best Way: With Banda

Los Angeles native and community activist Alex Enamorado, who has developed a program to help street vendors protect themselves and others, recently organized a creative and clever protest against a man named Daniel J. McGuire, who was seen on video destroying a street vendor’s stand with an axe.

McGuire is a resident of Woodland Hills, a suburb of Los Angeles in the San Fernando Valley, and has a history of repeatedly attacking street vendors in his neighborhood. This most recent incident is one of many where McGuire decided to take matters into his own hands and drive out “illegal” fruit vendors.

The attack was captured on video and posted to Enamorado’s Instagram page on Aug. 15. The video shows McGuire destroying the stand as he’s done in the past. Later however, we get a glimpse of him returning with an axe and demolishing the table and all of its contents. A GoFundMe page set up for the vendor, who only wants to be identified as Jonathan, has already raised more than $6,000.

In response to the axe attack, Enamorado organized a banda group to perform outside of McGuire’s house, which he posted on TikTok. The band can be seen standing in the middle of the street, performing with the support of McGuire’s neighbors, who gathered outside to cheer them on. McGuire himself is never seen approaching the band or even coming out of his house.

McGuire’s documented run-ins with street vendors date back to February of this year, when he vandalized and destroyed a street vendor’s table in the Woodland Hills area. The February incident caught the attention of The Unknown Resister, an anonymous activist working on behalf of a political action committee called Stand for Better.

Video of the incident is shown in a post on the PAC’s Twitter page, along with a video of McGuire verbally harassing a local man who confronted him about the attack, reports LA Taco.

According to KTLA 5, McGuire was arrested for battery when, in May of this year, he sprayed protestors with a hose after they gathered outside his home following yet another incident reported in April, according to a GoFundMe page posted for Tomas Escamilla.

A video from ABC 7 shows McGuire confronting protestors outside his home and spraying them with a garden hose. He’s later seen being escorted away from the residence by police. “He’s coming here, he’s assaulting people, he’s harassing the neighbors, leaving letters at their doors,” said a local man named Mike Mastrodomenico. “Constantly, constantly he’s like a public nuisance to the community.”

According to Enamorado’s initial Instagram post documenting last week’s incident, he mentions McGuire has put his house up for sale. After no fewer than three incidents this year alone, McGuire is feeling pressure from the local community to take his hatred somewhere else.

Enamorado recently organized another fundraiser for Elias the fruit vendor, who was murdered in cold blood in front of his daughter by two assailants who then stole his cash and fled the scene.