A Phoenix man lost his life after getting pinned under his car while trying to fix it, but onlookers who saw the shocking incident decided to rob him instead of helping.
Phoenix man in need of a helping hand robbed instead
Jeronimo Garcia Guerra, 69, was likely stuck under his car for over two hours in a Phoenix, Arizona, parking lot before someone finally called for help, according to a police report.
The father-of-two was driving his wife Margarita to work on the morning of June 17 when her car stalled on the way.
After getting his wife off to work, Guerra drove his daughter Monica’s car back to the parking lot where he left the broken down car to work on it himself while he was alone.
Authorities posited that the jack Guerra used to hoist up the car collapsed while he was underneath it, causing it to crush him to death.
He reached the parking lot around 9:45 a.m., but it wasn’t until over two hours later that police had been called.
While it’s unclear if anyone witnessed the car fall on top of Guerra, or how long he remained alive while pinned under it, somebody did get to scene before emergency responders.
Family of Phoenix man devastated by thieving bystanders
Guerra’s family told AZFamily that by the time the police found him, criminals had taken everything that he had in his pockets, ransacked the car he was attempting to repair, and even carjacked the vehicle he had driven to the parking lot.
“Who knows when the car really fell on him,” his daughter Monica told the outlet. “Who knows how long he’s been under there.”
Monica criticized the potential witnesses who saw the vehicle crush her dad and the people who exploited his helpless state to rob him.
“After everything, they went through my dad’s pockets and my mom’s car and they saw them leave with my car,” she said about the witnesses.
“It’s hard because I would never do that to somebody. I could care less about my car but at least they could have stayed there with him until help came,” Monica added.
“At least I would’ve known he wasn’t by himself all day until somebody decided to say oh my god he’s not moving.”
Police eventually found her vehicle, ditched near where the incident occurred, which wasn’t even comforting to her.
“That’s somebody’s dad, somebody’s husband, a grandparent, somebody’s best friend. He’s my person. And I don’t have that anymore because somebody couldn’t stop and check,” she remarked with clear grief.
Guerra’s son, Jerry, said that the tragic scenario played out exactly how his father always predicted society would treat him if he was in need.
“He always believed nobody out there is going to help you. In this situation, he was right,” Jerry commented.
New Yorkers catch man accused of sexually assaulting child
Across the country, a band of New Yorkers acted contradicted Guerra’s assertion, when they helped capture the undocumented immigrant accused of sexually assaulting a 13-year-old girl.
Christian Geovanny Inga-Landi allegedly tied up a 13-year-old boy and girl with their shoelaces in the woods, then sexually assaulted the girl.
His face was plastered on photographs put up all over the area, when Queens resident Daniel Ramos said he recognized Inga-Landi as regular at a sandwich shop he also liked to eat at.
Ramos said he joined around ten of his friends at said deli and waited for hours until Inga-Landi strolled in at midnight.
He told Fox News’ Bill Hemmer and Sandra Smith that two of his friends tried to apprehend the suspect in the deli, but didn’t succeed. When Inga-Landi tried to book out the door, he was met by eight other men.
Surveillance cameras caught the group surrounding the suspect and dragging him out of the deli.
The New York Post reported that he didn’t fight back, and managed to crawl under a park car, where he cowered until police arrived and arrested him.
“He knew better than to put up a fight,” Ramos noted. “He couldn’t really put up a fight because he was outnumbered and it probably would’ve gone worse if he did. It was better that he didn’t.”
Ramos said that the suspect initially claimed “he didn’t care what he did,” but eventually tried to explain it to the group, who wasn’t “trying to hear any of it.
“What he did was horrible and he did that to an innocent 13-year-old little girl. So we don’t condone that,” Ramos told Fox News.
Inga-Landi faces several felony charges, including rape, robbery, sexual assault, kidnapping, and endangering child welfare, according to NBC News.
