Cinco De Mayo Violence, Viral Video Prompt Community Response

Sup. Juan Miguel Martinez (center) holds a press conference in Mitchell Park parking lot. Vaun Mayes stands to his right. Walter Garron and park ranger program lead Todd Pisarski stand to his left. Photo by Graham Kilmer.

After violence at a Cinco De Mayo celebration and a video of a street vendor being harassed in a Mitchell Park parking lot went viral, area elected officials and community activists announced they are working on ways to improve safety at community events.

On Sunday, during Cinco De Mayo festivities on the south side of Milwaukee, violence erupted and a Milwaukee police officer was shot on S. Cesar Chavez Drive. The same day, in Mitchell Park, a paletero (mobile street vendor) was harrassed and had his cart tipped over during an incident that some are calling a “joke” that got out of hand.

Sup. Juan Miguel Martinez, who represents Mitchell Park on the Milwaukee County Board, announced at a press conference Thursday he plans to advocate for legislation at the city level that he believes could improve safety for the paletero. He also said he plans to work with Milwaukee County Parks to hold more community events within Mitchell Park.

“It is extremely disappointing to see individuals causing disruptions at events meant to uplift our community,” Martinez said in a statement Monday, after the violence over the weekend. “I am working to ensure that we make Cinco de Mayo a County-sponsored event in the future with proper security, not just police officers standing at entrances and exits, failing to address the altercations actually going on. Together, as a community, we can mitigate these situations by using the parks as a tool to stop these appalling incidents in the future.”

The supervisor said he plans to work with the parks department to make Mitchell Park more accessible for local residents interested in organizing community events there. “And when we do that we can have the events that we can control,” Martinez said.

Additionally, he wants to city to provide permits to the paleteros, who at times face violence. Many don’t speak English, Martinez said, and are afraid of potential consequences if they call the authorities. “Once they have permits on their carts they won’t be afraid to call people and put out there that they need help,” he said.

Vaun Mayes, a community activist and organizer, told Urban Milwaukee the viral video of the incident with the paletero was generating racial animus on social media. The paletero is Latino, and the individuals that assaulted him are Black. The press conference, Thursday, was in part an attempt to pour cold water on the narrative spreading online that the harassment was racially motivated.

Mayes knows one of the individuals in the video, and said the situation was not motivated by any racist intent. It was a joke that got out of hand, he said.

“It got really bad,” he said. “And I was not, I was not happy about that at all.”

The young man has apologized to the street vendor and the owner of the Paleteria Yayo cart owner, Rene Adan, Mayes said, adding that the young man donated money to the cart owner.

Adan was at the supervisor’s press conference Thursday, and said he felt “sadness” when he first saw the video.

“We need to do better as a community,” Adan said. “This is not an isolated episode. I mean, this happens every year.”

Adan hopes the viral video will raise the issue of the violence that paleteros face on the streets. “Nobody knows the way the street vendors live. Nobody knows they need help,” he said. “The streets are dangerous.”

Walter Garron, a community activist with the Brown Berets, agrees with Mayes’ characterization that the incident caught on video was a joke gone wrong, and not a racist attack. Garron was one of the community members who tracked down the young men in the video to bring the incident to a resolution.

“And I want to make that clear, because there’ve been many threats to those kids, they have not stolen anything from that guy, nor hit him, it was a joke that got out of hand,” he said.

The violence this past weekend has nothing to do with Cinco De Mayo or community celebrations, rather it is a microcosm of violence that occurs in Milwaukee.

“This is happening all over our city,” he said. “Violence and crime is getting out of hand and that’s an issue that we all need to address together.”

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