A 13-year-old boy, his friend and his mother are speaking out after he was allegedly assaulted at a Dollar Tree store in Fremont. The incident was caught on a cellphone video.
Maria Mureno, the victim’s mother, said there’s always two sides to a story but feels there’s no justification for a man attacking her son.
“I don’t know if I was able to soak it in in the moment. I’m basically like where are you? Where are you guys, what’s happening?” she said.
Mureno described a phone call she received Tuesday that no parent ever wants to hear. She got a call from her son’s phone but it was his friend on the other end, frantically telling her a man was choking her son inside of a Dollar Tree store in Fremont.
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As Mureno left work to get to the scene, the friend sent a video of the altercation, which shows the man wrestling with her son, grabbing him by the neck and throwing him to the ground.
“You can’t just go around try to hurt kids because you don’t agree with what they do,” she said.
According to Fremont police, the suspect confronted a group of middle school teenagers inside of the store Tuesday and tried to choke at least one of them. They added the attacker left the area before they arrived.
“I was like 'OK, why is this man getting in my face for?' Like I didn't do nothing wrong to him. I just asked a simple question to him. Trying to get me made because no reason to come in my face?” said one of the victims.
Two of the teenage victims spoke to NBC Bay Area Wednesday and they did not want to reveal their identities.
This includes Mureno, who said that he was simply defending his friend after the man got in their faces after his friend questioned why he was following them in the store.
“I was scared, I was shocked and scared. I really couldn't do nothing. I was trying get his hands off me. I couldn’t really breathe,” the teenage victim said.
The case is under an active investigation by Fremont police, which will review surveillance video of the incident from the store.
For Mureno, she hopes justice will be served and police find the man who attacked her son.
“I want to hear his story, of course. But no matter what, don’t put your hands on somebody’s child,” she said.
