THE ROUNDABOUT near Green Acres Park at 18th and Spencer streets in Longmont where Jorge Rodriquez says he was assaulted on Aug. 9.
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hen I try to go to sleep at night, it wakes me up and it’s something that I can’t get out of my mind. It just has me like this,” Jorge Rodriguez says as he circles his hands around each side of his head. It all started on Sunday Aug. 9, after a 14-hour workday. Rodriguez, who works in siding for a Longmont construction company, was picking up a 12-pack of beer at the Hover Crossing Wine & Spirits drive-thru like he often does after a long week. But as he sat in his truck counting his change, the truck behind him began honking. Rodriguez says he waved in the mirror, said sorry, and pulled out of the way to finish what he was doing. As the truck drove past him, Rodriguez says the driver yelled: “Fuck you, motherfucker,” while throwing him the middle finger. Rodriguez says he then exited the parking lot, heading down the street to his boss’ house. The man in the truck was in front of him. At the small roundabout by Green Acres Park at 18th and Spencer streets, Rodriguez says the man slammed on his brakes causing Rodriguez to quickly pull his e-brake to avoid hitting him. According to Rodriguez, the man then got out of his truck and so did Rodriguez. “He started coming toward me and I was afraid,” Rodriguez says says through an interpreter. “I was thinking, why is this person coming toward me? Why are they insulting
A broken nose, a swollen face and no rest How one altercation has frightened the Longmont Latinx community
Story and photos by Angela K. Evans
BOULDER COUNTY’S INDEPENDENT VOICE
me? He was saying things in English like, ‘fuck you, Mexican.’ And that was when he hit me the first time.” Rodriguez says the first blow to the left side of his face knocked him to the ground. He says he was hit about 30 times over the course of five or six minutes, while he was on his knees on the asphalt. At one point, Rodriguez says the man climbed on top of his back as he continued to say, “Go back to your country, Mexican.” Rodriguez is from Honduras and has been in Colorado for about 10 years, since leaving home to find work in the U.S. “You see this in the news and you know that it happens daily, but you never think that it’s going to happen here or to one personally,” Rodriguez says. Rodriguez says he’s never experienced anything like this either in the U.S. or in Honduras. “Maybe [it happens] in the big cities, but I come I
from a small town where we just work the land. There’s not that type of violence,” he says. Rodriguez says he didn’t try to fight back but just kept asking, “Why you push me? Why you hit me?” in English. “I just felt fear. I thought he was going to kill me. Because you always see on the news how people come out and they have guns or weapons with them. And so there was that fear of, I don’t know what he’s got. I don’t know what he’s bringing with him.” According to Rodriguez, a woman with the accused assailant tried to intervene, telling Rodriguez to go back to his car and getting in between the two men. Eventually two other women who were walking around the park came upon the scene, but Rodriguez says at least one of them joined the man in yelling at him to go back to his country. “And they were saying, ‘Oh, we’re AUGUST 20, 2020
going to call police,’” he remembers. “But then they never did. And I was hoping that somebody would call the police.” And then all of sudden, Rodriguez says, everyone was gone. And he was left alone in the street. “I went back to my truck,” he says. “I had misplaced my wallet. The only thing I could find was my phone. I was completely confused. My face was swollen.”
Charges have yet to be filed in the case, but Longmont detective Nick Aiello referred the investigation to Boulder County District Attorney’s Office on Tuesday, Aug. 18. “We need to go through their entire investigation and determine whether any follow up is needed, and upon receiving any follow up requested we will then determine what, if any, charges should be filed in this matter,” says Christian Gardner-Wood, director of community protection at the DA’s office. He expects to have an update in the next couple of weeks. As of Friday, Aug. 14, Aiello confirmed a suspect had been identified and interviewed, as well as several independent witnesses. At the time, Aiello said the department was still searching for the two women who came upon the incident. Aiello added in an email, “Thus far, there are differing accounts of what occurred.” “That is not unusual in most see ALTERCATION Page 14
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