Three Americans were stabbed in Puerto Rico on Monday, February 6, after they refused to heed warnings about not filming in the notorious seaside community La Perla, made famous by the “Despacito” music video by Luis Fonsi and Daddy Yankee, police said.
The incident began at around 4 am in the well-known community when one of the tourists, later identified by police as 39-year-old Carlos Sanchez Brown from South Carolina, started taking videos of a hamburger cart.
Some locals noticed the man filming the cart and warned him to stop filming and get out of the neighborhood.
According to Municipal Commissioner Jose Juan Garcia, Brown was in the company of two more Americans, identified as 37-year-old Wallace Florence, a South Carolina resident and 38-year-old Jackson Tremayne from Georgia.
A local news station reported that the Americans allegedly refused to heed the warning and continued filming. Soon after, a suspect, who police described as a man with a fair complexion and long white hair, attacked Florence and gave him a blow to the head.
The three men tried to escape the area by going to the Old San Juan neighborhood, but they noticed people following them, local police said.
As the trio approached a street near the Art and History Museum, an unidentified assailant took out a knife and attacked two of the men. The assailant stabbed Brown in his left forearm and Tremayne around six times in his back, left arm, left chest side, and the upper left side of his abdomen.
Tremayne and Brown were transported by ambulances to a local hospital, but police said Florence refused medical attention
So far, no one has been arrested.
The attack is not the first time tourists have been targeted for filming in La Perla.
The incident happened two years after Tariq Quadir Loat, 24, was attacked, killed, and burned. Some locals noticed the 24-year-old filming while buying drugs in the neighborhood and warned him to stop. A group of people attacked him and his friend and beat them up. Luckily, the friend survived the attack.
La Perla was once considered one of the most dangerous slums on the island as it was the biggest heroin distribution point. However, crime in the neighborhood significantly dropped after federal agents raided it.
The neighborhood became famous after Puerto Rican musicians Daddy Yankee and Luis Fonsi featured it in their 2017 hit song “Despacito.”