NEW BEDFORD — For the second time in the last nine months, a local Guatemalan community activist has been assaulted, police said.
Adrian Ventura, director of the Centro Comunitario de Trabajadores or Workers Community Center, said he and his teenage son were attacked by two armed men about 8:30 p.m. Tuesday in front of Our Lady of Guadalupe Parish at St. James Church on County Street.
One of the men had a gun and the other was armed with a Taser, he said.
He said he was struck with the Taser three times and his 16-year-old son, Walter Ventura, was struck twice by the Taser.
Ventura said he ran, yelling and calling police on his cellphone and the assailants fled when he reached his home.
He said he believes the attack is part of an organized “campaign of intimidation” because he is a local activist and the men did not try to take either his phone or the money he was carrying.
“This is what I don’t understand,” he said, adding he and his son were treated at the hospital. “When it’s a robber, they just rob you, they don’t torture you.”
Detective Capt. Steven Vicente, head of the Major Crimes Unit of the New Bedford Police Department, confirmed the assault but said Wednesday the police report is incomplete.
Ventura was assaulted by two men wearing ski masks on Blackmer Street on Jan. 24.
